What Peter Doesn't Know Can Hurt Him
by GallifreyGal
Summary: The companion story to "A Lesson In Domesticity", a domestic avengers fanfiction. These are the missing pieces from Tony and Steve's perspectives. Reading LID is essential to understanding this story.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: I have a bit of difficulty sometimes with A Lesson In Domesticity because I'm doing it all in Peter's perspective—it's a _very_ limited third person. So here's a bit of what you're missing with Steve, Tony, and all of the Avengers—as well as a bit more back story regarding Peter's origins! Double brackets around several paragraphs indicate that this is material that has been copy and pasted from LID with minimal changes.

There were few things in life that Steve Rogers desired and needed to keep him happy. One: He needed love (and _lovin'_) on a regular basis, preferably from Tony, though certainly friends were a good substitute (though, of course, not in the _lovin'_ department). Two: He needed a stable family life, which he had with Tony and their eighteen-year-old son, Peter (well, it was _mostly_ stable, anyway). Three: Most problematically, Steve Rogers needed the world to be safe, and for people to be _good_ and to do the _right thing_. And that was the reason for most of Steve's regular grief. Well, that and Tony's rather slovenly nature in all areas of his life except work—would it _kill_ him to pick his clothes up off the ground every now and again? But at the moment, that third need was what wasn't being fulfilled—and unsurprisingly, it was once again Tony who was falling short.

"Tony, rein back!" Steve shouted into his comm. "We can't hit him without hitting those civilians!"

"I've got the shot," Tony said back steadily. Iron Man was poised carefully in the rafters of the warehouse at one end, and the _thing_ that they were fighting flew on some sort of air-surfboard at the other end, distracted momentarily by the Hulk. Between them were a bunch of civilians trapped in a round pen like animals. It was the most horrifying and bizarre hostage situation Steve had seen since the forties.

"If you take it you stand a 90% chance of clipping a rafter and crushing half those people to death—stand _down_ Iron Man," Steve ordered.

"90%? JARVIS says it's more like 60%. You need some work on your math, Rogers," Tony said.

"Don't you dare take that—" But it was too late, Steve heard Tony's weapons charge and then fire—Steve ran towards the civilians, shield raised—maybe he could shelter some of them. Steve couldn't even see if Tony had hit the Green Thing on the Surfboard—he was too preoccupied by the crunching sound of a beam slowly snapping.

Steve dodged in between the land mines that had been keeping them from reaching the civilians—he wouldn't be able to let them out lest they accidentally blow themselves (and all the Avengers) sky high, but if he could just get there in time he might be able to save a few lives. He jumped into the pen and held up his shield just as a groaning sound indicated that the beam was falling. Debris came raining down, some of it bouncing off Steve's shield—but the beam never did. Steve looked up—Iron Man was holding it up, but Steve knew that even that suit couldn't hold it forever. The whole building was coming down.

"Fuck, Tony," Steve swore.

"I'd love it if you would later, darling, but now's not the time," Tony said. Steve could hear the strain in his voice as he tried to keep the beam up. Steve heard another groaning sound—the whole right half of the building was coming down, on top of the Hulk and the Green Thing, which looked like it might have been thrown from its flying surfboard. Steve couldn't worry about Bruce now—the Hulk could take a little thing like a building collapsing on top of him. But Natasha and Clint certainly couldn't.

"Hawkeye, Widow, get out of here!" Steve ordered. Natasha had been just starting to dodge her way through the minefield, but she knew an order when she heard one. She turned back. Steve didn't know where Clint was—he _had_ been up in the rafters, but had he been in one of the ones that was now in a pile? Steve didn't think so, and he hoped he was right. "Captain America to Base, Base do you read me?"

"Copy that Agent Rogers."

"The building's infrastructure is compromised, the right half is down—we need an aircraft to pick up these civilians stat," Steve ordered. Moments later a chopper flew through the open half of the building and let down a ladder. Steve could hear a groaning sound. Steve ushered the terrified people up the ladder as quickly as he could. There were maybe fifteen of them, and when they were all clear, he jumped on the ladder, too. "GO! GO! GO!" The helicopter took off, and Iron Man dropped the beam, speeding away as quickly as possible as the rest of the building collapsed.

"Hawkeye, Black Widow, do you read me?" Captain America asked into his comm.

"We're fine," Clint replied flatly. "But barely—what the hell were you _thinking_, Tony?"

"I had the shot," Tony said. "And it looks like everything turned out just fine."

"Yeah? Ask Bruce how he feels in the morning," Steve snapped. S.H.I.E.L.D. agents would probably spend half the night trying to dig him out—and praying that they dug out Bruce, not the other guy.

"He'll be fine," Tony said, but Steve heard the tiny waver in his voice.

"God willing," Steve muttered, climbing up the ladder all the way so that the helicopter could land on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s helicarrier. He and a few other agents helped all the people onto the larger plane and hurried them beneath the runways. Steve walked with Iron Man into the belly of the plane.

"What the hell happened out there?" Agent Fury demanded as soon as they arrived.

"We didn't pull together like a team as we should," Steve replied tiredly, taking off his helmet and running a hand through his sweaty hair.

"That isn't what it sounded like," Agent Fury snapped. "Stark, you do _not_ ignore a direct order from your superior, you hear me?"

"Loud and clear, Fury," Tony said. Agent Fury stared him down, but Tony just stared back.

"Get out of that suit and get ready for debriefing," Fury said in a low voice. He walked away and started shouting orders into his comm.—get a security detail to escort the captives back home, get a detail to the press to explain that there had been a gas explosion, get a team out to Bruce to uncover him—look out for the Hulk, look out for the green thing… Steve left with Tony to get changed back into his civilian clothes. They joined Clint in the locker room. He was bruised and had tiny little cuts on his arms, probably from falling bits of the roof. Understandably, he did _not_ look happy.

"Have you two worked out your lover's quarrel or should I take more armor into the next fight?" Clint asked grumpily.

"I'm sorry, Clint," Steve started to apologize, but Tony interrupted.

"This is _not_ a lover's quarrel. It was bad team management. I _had_ that shot, and if Steve had let me take it when I said so the first time I wouldn't have clipped the beam at all," Tony said stubbornly, an installation in the locker room removing his suit.

"Bad team management?" Steve asked, affronted. He stripped off his outfit, glad to be rid of it now that it was hot and covered in sweat. "There were fifteen people about to be crushed to death if you made the slightest miscalculation—and they nearly were!"

"_Nearly_," Tony repeated. "And it wouldn't have been a problem if you would have just trusted me in the first place—"

"Ok cupcakes, break it up," Clint said, putting his arms between them. "We've got to get to debriefing sometime this century, after all." Steve gave Tony a stern look before heading off to the showers. Tony huffed and took off his black suit—heading to the _other_ showers. Clint rolled his eyes. "I swear you two are worse than Ana and Will." Were Steve not in such a bad mood, he would have laughed at the comparison. Clint and Natasha's six-year-old twins were absolute terrors, always fighting with each other. Peter had babysat for them once, and when he'd come home he'd looked at Tony and Steve, covered from head to toe in finger paint, silly string, and a couple of nerf darts, and said solemnly, "_Never. Again_." Steve knew for a fact that Clint and Natasha were constantly looking for sitters, and that more often than not the most junior S.H.I.E.L.D. agent got saddled with the job. It was considered a hazing ritual. Steve cleaned himself up and changed into a plain white t-shirt and khakis. He headed to the inner chamber and took a seat next to Clint. A few minutes later Tony waltzed in, dressed in the same suit he'd worn into work that morning.

"Can we get started then?" Steve asked Agent Fury. Agent Fury nodded. "What I'd like to know is—what _was_ that thing?"

"We have no idea," Fury replied. "We have some suspicions, but—"

"Well, what are the theories?" asked Natasha.

"Yeah, why don't you share with the class, Fury?" Tony asked. Steve internally groaned—what was _with_ him? Fury glowered at Tony.

"Why don't you tell me, Stark, since weapons are your area of expertise," Fury replied.

"Um, _were_ my area of expertise. Now my specialty is in green energy—or did you miss that memo nearly twenty years ago?" Tony said. Steve balled his fist tighter on the table—why did he _always_ have to do this? "And it's Oscorp. Obviously."

"Oscorp?" Clint asked. "Why would Oscorp kidnap a bunch of civilians and call S.H.I.E.L.D. up?"

"Why would _anyone_ call S.H.I.E.L.D. after kidnapping a bunch of people?" Steve asked.

"Easy. We're dealing with a psychopath," Natasha answered. "Someone like Loki." The mood in the room shifted as the others tensed. Loki hadn't exactly been _fun_ to handle.

"The reason doesn't matter. I've seen a modified version of that glider at their most recent expo," Tony said, pouring himself a drink. Steve wondered briefly how he always managed to find alcohol despite the situation or location. "And Oscorp's the only one with the capability of producing armor like that green suit—durable, flexible, completely inflammable, bulletproof…" Tony shook his head. "And the bombs…I've never seen anything like them. I'd say they're brilliant but I think horrifying is a better word."

"Well if we're dealing with something that dangerous, Stark, maybe it'd be a good idea to _follow your Captain_," Fury said.

"I don't listen to bad calls, chief," Tony said.

"It isn't your place to decide if a call is bad or not," Fury replied. "And we need _team_ members on this _team_, Stark—I thought you knew that by now." Tony opened his mouth to speak—but Fury interrupted, holding a button on his comm..

"They've found Banner. Look, you all need to get back to New York and we need to clean up here. Go catch a plane and we'll call when we get more information." Steve got up, recognizing the dismissal. He pulled Tony out by his elbow, pulling him aside.

"What is your deal today, Tony?" Steve asked.

"What do you mean, what is my deal?" Tony asked.

"This isn't like you," Steve said. He paused and then amended, "No, that's a lie. This is _exactly_ like you—like you twenty years ago, and that's what worries me. What happened at work? Did a deal go sour? Are you still having trouble with that breakthrough? Because you'll get it eventually, Tony. You always do."

"I'm just being myself—what, you didn't like me twenty years ago? Because—"

"That's not what I _said_—"

But regardless of what was said or meant, Steve and Tony ended up arguing the whole plane ride back. And the entire car ride back. In fact, they were still arguing as they walked up the steps.

[["—no, Tony, I don't care. We _don't put civilians in the line of fire_. Not _ever_," Steve said vehemently.

"Oh, give me a break Captain Hard Ass," Tony said, rolling his eyes. "What about that time in Tahoe? Or L.A.? Hell, do you even _remember_ Geneva?"

"Those were different!" Steve insisted. "We got all the civilians out, we directed the fire _away_ from them, and when they _were _in the way, we _moved_ them. We didn't _fire over their heads_ and hope it didn't hit—"

"Uh, we?" Tony asked sarcastically. "Who's we? Not _you _and me, certainly, because I can't even remember the last time you used a weapon—"

"Uh, Dads?" Peter interjected.

"I can't remember the last time I _needed_ a weapon—"

"Dads?"

"Oh, right, because you can just rip someone's throat out with your goddamn bare hands can't you Captain Steroids—"

"DADS!" Peter yelled. Steve and Tony turned to look at their son, suddenly noticing his presence.

"Peter!" Steve said with shock. "Peter, what happened to your eye?"]]

It took a while to get Peter to answer that particular question, and even then it wasn't a real answer. Steve tried to hide his real concern as he fetched Peter a steak to put on his eye.

[["Pops," Peter groaned, "it's not 1940 anymore. I could just ice it." Steve plopped the steak over his eye.

"That'll freeze your face real fast. This'll cool it," Steve explained. He sat back down and saw Peter grimace at the feeling of raw meat on his skin. Peter glared at his dad, who had an expression of barely contained laughter.

"What? I didn't say anything. I'm not saying anything!" Tony said, but then he started laughing. He whipped out his phone.

"Daaaad," Peter said, trying to cover his face, but Tony managed to snap a picture anyway.

"Aw, our little boy, all grown up and getting beaten on. I hope you gave him as good as he got, Pete," Tony said. Peter mumbled something unintelligible, and Steve gave him a knowing, sympathetic look. He knew what it was like to be the little guy. It was highly unlikely that Peter managed to lay one on the bully.

"Anything else happen?" Steve asked.

"Well, uh," Peter started. "Uh…well, you know that Oscorp _Young Scientist_ award? Because—"

"_No_," Tony said emphatically. "No, Peter Parker, you are _not_ thinking of entering that contest. Not on my watch." Steve frowned at Tony.

"A Young Scientist contest?" Steve asked. "Well, I don't know, Tony. I know it's Oscorp, but that sounds like a great opportunity for Peter—"

"_No_!" Tony shouted. "No, it's _not_. Do you know how much environmental damage Oscorp does _per day_? And that's just the _legal_ statistics—do you know how much they're covering up? I will not have my son be associated in any way with _Norman Osborn_." He spat the name out like it was a curse word.

"Well—" Peter tried to speak, but Tony was already in a mood, and he wasn't having any of it.

"No!" Tony said. "You don't need that scholarship. Your pops and I can pay for your education just fine. You want to go to ESU? Fine, you can go to ESU. You can go wherever you want Peter, and I'm sure any university would be thrilled to get you, but you won't get there because of _Oscorp_."

"Tony, you're being unreasonable. If Peter wants to make his way in the world—" Steve said, but was also interrupted.

"Then he will, but he won't do it with Oscorp at his back! Besides, you _know_ he'd win, and what would we do then? They always want the parents to be involved with this sort of thing—what are we going to do? Hire actors? Or expose ourselves after trying to protect Peter all this time?"

"He's eighteen! We don't have to be involved with this, not publicly anyway. He wouldn't be in any danger—"

"You don't know that! And it doesn't even matter—I will not have Norman Osborn be the one to pay for my son's education, it's practically blood money—"

"Oh, Tony, stop being so overdramatic—"]]

Steve didn't even notice when Peter slipped away upstairs, but Tony must have.

"You want to let him do a competition sponsored by _Oscorp_? Were you even AT the debriefing today?"

"You don't know for sure that Oscorp is behind that monster," Steve said firmly. "Anyone could have stolen that equipment—"

"In a highly secure facility like Oscorp?" Tony snorted. "Do you even realize how unlikely that is? How ridiculous a suggestion—"

"You don't know!"

"They haven't reported a break-in—"

"That _you're_ aware of! You don't know everything, Tony, and I for one think it would be good for Peter to be able to prove himself in any way he wants to," Steve said.

"Peter is _perfect_, he doesn't _need_ to prove himself—"

"Not to us, maybe, but did you ever wonder if maybe he needs to prove that to _himself_?" Steve asked. Tony shut up and just glowered. Steve sighed. "Let's just go to bed, Tony. It's been a long day."

"At least that I can agree with," Tony said, taking Steve's hand in his. Steve smiled gently at the contact. They headed up the stairs together and into their bedroom. Steve changed into his pajamas—just switching into sweatpants—while Tony did the same.

"So, what's the plan for tomorrow?" Steve asked, slipping beneath the covers. Tony joined him.

"Oh, just a little corporate espionage. I figured I'd take Eve, and—" Steve groaned.

"Do you have to take _Eve_?" he asked. Tony frowned.

"What's wrong with Eve?"

"There's nothing _wrong_ with Eve, but you were ogling her the entire time Clint and Natasha skyped her and the kids—"

"I was _not_ ogling her!"

"You were! You were ogling Eve's breasts!"

"In my defense, her shirt was _extremely_ low cut—"

"Tony!"

"I wasn't ogling her, not really, Steve, I'm joking—"

"She's too junior, anyway, why would you trust her with something like that?"

"_Because_ she's new—there's no way Oscorp can know she's a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent—"

"They shouldn't know _any _of the agents are with S.H.I.E.L.D.—admit it, you just want to see if she has the butt to match—"

"Oh, and you're accusing _me_ of ogling! Ha! Clearly you sneaked a peek—"

"It was hard not to notice! But _I _don't _ogle_—"

"Oh, you're not as squeaky clean as you like to think, Captain—"

"Cleaner than _you_—"

"I'm not so sure your buddies from the forties would agree considering whose bed you're sleeping in—" Steve got up as something inside him snapped. He grabbed his pillow and got out of bed. "—where are you going, Steve?"

"I'm sleeping downstairs."

"Oh, come on, don't be like that—"

"Good _night,_ Tony." Steve left the bedroom.

"FINE," Tony shouted

"FINE!" Steve shouted back. He went into the living room and plopped down on the couch. He turned over uncomfortably, already wishing he was back in bed, with Tony in his arms—but Tony was being a jerk. He thought uncomfortably of Bucky—what _would_ he have said about his relationship with Tony? How would he have explained to him that he'd married a man? And—God, what would Howard have thought? Steve turned over again and drew up his blankets tightly. These were things he didn't like to think about too much, questions he could never answer, parts of himself that he could never reconcile with others…

Steve reached out for Peter's notebook, which he'd left on the coffee table. He took up a pencil and started to sketch, feeling like Tony was much further away than just upstairs.

Tony woke up, feeling oddly cold. He opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling as he remembered where Steve had gone. _Downstairs_. Tony sighed and threw off his blankets. He hadn't slept well. Not that he ever did, but he'd been tossing and turning all night. He glanced at the clock—it was seven in the morning, much earlier than he liked to be up, but then, he'd gone to sleep earlier than usual. He yawned and headed to the kitchen—he could smell pancakes and bacon. Undoubtedly Steve was cooking. He wandered into the kitchen.

"Pops," he heard his son groan. His husband chuckled.

[["Well you two have been working hard for such an ungodly hour," Tony said.

"Tony, it's seven in the morning," Steve said, rolling his eyes. He got up and grabbed a couple of mugs from the cabinet. Tony plopped in a chair at the kitchen table.

"Exactly," he said. He took a fork and put two big pancakes onto Peter's plate before grabbing a couple for himself. Steve set down a mug of coffee in front of Tony. Steve gave Tony a look—a look that Tony knew meant "Let's forget about yesterday." Tony returned the look. It meant that all was forgiven—on both sides—and that nothing more would be said about it. How, Tony wondered, how had he ever gotten so lucky? Tony took the mug. Peter took a bite of his pancakes. "So. What's the plan for today?"

"You're going to work," Steve said. "Peter's going to school, and then the library for a bit. And I'm—I don't know. Cleaning the house and checking in at S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters to check the status on the—" He looked at Peter, then back to Tony. "—the situation." Tony nodded.

"So what are you _really_ doing Peter?" Tony asked. Peter nearly choked on his pancakes.

"W-what?" he asked.

"What is it? A party? With alcohol and half naked girls? Drugs? Is Uncle Bruce giving you his ganja?" Tony said.

"Uncle Bruce does weed?" Peter asked.

"No, your Dad just likes to pretend that he does," Steve said, an amused grin on his face. Tony took a big bite of pancake and then swallowed.

"I mean the library—really? What kind of kid did we raise, Steve?" Tony asked. Steve chuckled and shook his head.

"A good one, the last time I checked," he said. Tony shook his head.

"I knew signing him up for the boy scouts was a bad idea. But you just looked so cute in that tight little scout leader uniform—"

"Oh _God_, ok slowly going into territory that will destroy my sanity _and _my childhood at the same time, dads," Peter said quickly.

"Then what are you still doing here? Don't you have a bus to catch?" Tony asked. Peter looked at his watch. He shoveled the last bit of pancake into his mouth and ran to the living room to pick up his backpack and camera.

"Have a good day, son!" Tony and Steve said at the same time, just as Peter ran out the front door.]]

"You still planning to spy on Oscorp today?" Steve asked.

"I'll just be sending Eve over to get a job. Rhonda Martin is her new pseudonym. She'll be Osborn's temp secretary," Tony said. He took a sip of coffee.

"How did you know Osborn needed a temp?" Steve asked.

"Because last night his secretary won a surprise trip to the Cayman Islands," Tony said with a grin. Steve laughed.

"Subtle," he said sarcastically.

"Isn't it though?" Tony asked breezily.

"So," Steve said, getting up and putting his—and Peter's—dishes in the dishwasher, "what will _you_ be doing all day?"

"Oh, I need to work on that…thing…I've been working on," Tony said vaguely.

"Yeah, what _is_ that thing, anyway? You've never told me," Steve said, closing the washer.

"Well, it's an internalized compressor that will hopefully act as a coolant—"

"I get it. That's code for, 'it's techie, you won't understand'," Steve said with a laugh. Tony smiled back at him, feeling slightly guilty. It was so easy to lie to Steve about technology. He didn't know Tony was just spitting out nonsense.

"Well," Tony said, "you're not wrong." He got up and put his own dishes away. When he finished, Steve put his arms around Tony's waist from behind him. He kissed his neck.

"I missed you last night," Steve murmured.

"I missed you, too," Tony said, turning in his arms and kissing him deeply. Steve curled his hands in Tony's hair and drew him closer, and for one glorious hour they forgot anyone or anything else ever existed. But all good things must come to an end, and so eventually Tony showered and got dressed for work. He headed out the door, sent off with a kiss from his husband, but he didn't go to work. He had somewhere else to stop off, first.

He drove outside the city limits and kept driving for a couple of hours. The scenery changed from suburbs to farmland and back to suburbs again. Tony drove up to a gaited neighborhood and punched in the pass code. He drove through until he reached a beautiful house overlooking a lake. He parked in the driveway and took off his sunglasses. He walked up to the door and rang the doorbell.

Moments later, a beautiful woman opened the door. She had wavy, dark brown hair, porcelain skin, and ruby red lips. She could have been a model, Tony reflected. In fact, he'd told her so before. She smiled wryly at him.

"I'm glad you decided to come, Tony," she said. "Come in." She stood aside and Tony walked in. She shut—and locked—the door behind them.


	2. Chapter 2

Tony Stark was not one to ever feel uncomfortable. No matter the situation, he was able to adapt. But this situation was one that Tony Stark had no desire to adapt to—it was one he'd rather avoid all together.

"Coffee?" asked Rebecca, indicating a fresh pot on the coffeemaker. She poured a mug.

"No thanks," Tony said flatly.

"This will be a short visit then, hm?" Rebecca asked, taking the mug for herself.

"What do you want, Rebecca?" Tony asked.

"You know what I want, Tony. I told you on the phone. I want to see my son," she said. Tony stared her down, but she stared right back, her face open, honest.

"Eighteen years," Tony said. "Eighteen years and you never once wanted to even pick up a phone and call your son. Why now?" Rebecca sighed.

"Tony, I was young. I wasn't _ready_—"

"And now I've got an eighteen-year-old whose never met his mother and hasn't ever planned on it," Tony said.

"Well, does he even know that's an option?" Rebecca asked angrily. "Or did you invent some story? Did you tell him that I'm dead, is that why you don't want me to see him?"

"I've done a lot of things in my life, Rebecca," Tony said, "but I have never lied to my son. I've never abandoned him—hell, I think I've been a pretty damn good father, which isn't something I ever thought I'd say. And what I don't want is Peter getting hurt—something I'd say is fucking well unavoidable if you're in the picture."

"Excuse me?" Rebecca said, affronted.

"No, I stopped excusing you the day you handed Peter over and said goodbye for good," Tony said.

"Time was you weren't too sad about that," Rebecca snapped. "If I recall everything worked out just _perfectly_ for you, didn't it Tony? You got your precious son and you've been what—raising him with that Boy Scout boyfriend of yours?"

"This is between you and me, Rebecca," Tony said in a low voice.

"Is it? Because I'm pretty sure it's between me and your whole little _family_, but I don't see them here," Rebecca said, crossing her arms. "Why is that, anyway? I never do see your little family anywhere—certainly not on the news."

"Rebecca—" Tony said in a warning tone.

"It's because of that boyfriend, isn't it? Too afraid to come out of the closet, Tony?" she searched his face. "No—no, it's the boyfriend isn't it? That makes sense. He's a bit old-fashioned, isn't he?"

"What do you _want_ Rebecca?" Tony snapped again.

"I want to speak to my son!" Rebecca said. "I want to meet him face to face. And since I have no idea where you live, I guess I've got to go through you first, so that's what I'm doing." Rebecca stepped closer to him, staring him right in the eyes. "I want to see my son. I expect you to give me the address by Saturday evening."

"I don't have to give you anything," Tony said. "That's what those papers you signed meant, Rebecca. That I got Peter, no strings attached. Full custody. And in case you haven't noticed, which I doubt you have, he turned eighteen two months ago, so really this has nothing to do with you anymore."

"And it has nothing to do with you, either," Rebecca shot back. "This should be _his_ decision, Tony. Not yours. Not even mine. _His_." Tony headed towards the door, and Rebecca followed him. "I want that address, Tony."

"If it's his decision, then he should decide whether or not you get that address," Tony said. He opened the door. "You'll hear by Saturday whether or not he wants you in his life."

"I want to hear his voice," Rebecca demanded. "If you call me on Saturday and tell me that he doesn't ever want to hear from me, and _he_ doesn't talk to me, _he_ doesn't tell me that—then I'm calling up the latest news channel and your life will never be anything close to _private_ again, Stark."

"You really think _that's_ what would be best for Peter, Rebecca?" Tony asked seriously. Rebecca pursed her lips. Tony put on his sunglasses and got in his car. He already knew the answer to that question. This wasn't about Peter. But what it _was_ about, Tony had no idea. He backed out of the driveway, his thoughts troubled and dark. He needed a stiff drink—stat.

"You can't be serious, Tony," Pepper said. Tony and Pepper were in Tony's office at Stark Tower, where Tony had gone after his meeting with Rebecca and promptly gotten wasted. Tony groaned. "If you come in through the door like that and Peter sees you, Steve will kill you. Stay here tonight."

"Nope," Tony said, getting up from the plush leather chair and putting on his suit jacket. "It's almost dinnertime."

"Oh, Tony, just stay here a couple more hours and sober up," Pepper said. "You can't drive like this, anyway."

"Then I'll take the subway," Tony said. He could hear the slur in his voice, but he had to get home. Steve was _already_ mad at him. A tiny, niggling voice in his head told him that Steve would be _angrier_ if Peter saw Tony drunk, but he ignored it. He just wanted to fall asleep in his husband's arms and forget about the day. He pressed the button on the elevator and got in, putting on his sunglasses to hide his glassy eyes.

"The aftermath of this has nothing to do with me!" Pepper called out as the doors shut. After all, Tony Stark had never _really_ changed. He was just himself out of the eyes of the public—and certainly out of the eyes of his son.

The door opened to the lobby, and Tony sighed—he never went out this way, onto the street. He always entered into the basement, driving his car or motorcycle out. This felt so…common. And indeed, there was such a scene happening in the lobby. Why was his receptionist running about like a chicken with its head cut off?

"Tony!" Tony looked harder at the people causing the scene, looking over his heavily tinted sunglasses. It was Natasha, Clint and—

"Peter?" Peter was collapsed on one of the leather couches, his face unbelievably white, his forehead sweaty. He was thrashing a bit, While Clint tried to pin him in place to keep him from hurting himself. "Oh, god, Peter!" He was at his boy's side before he even knew that he was moving. He took off his sunglasses—seeing his son nearly dead on a couch was the most sobering experience Tony Stark had ever had.

"We don't know what happened, Tony, he just came in here and collapsed," Natasha said quickly.

"Call Steve—someone call Steve," Tony managed to get out. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Natasha pull out her cell. He tapped Peter's face gently. "Pete? Peter, wake up son." He didn't care who might overhear him—his safety was already compromised. Peter moaned, his eyes sliding open briefly, and then falling back closed again.

"An ambulance has already been called," Clint told him. Tony had expected nothing less. He sat by Peter, trying to coax him back into consciousness, until the ambulance arrived and put him on a stretcher. Clint and Natasha said that they would follow in a car. Tony rode in the back of the ambulance as the EMTs hooked him up to an IV and monitored his vitals.

"Peter, it's me, it's Dad, Peter," Tony pleaded with his son, but he would not be stirred. Occasionally he would cry out, but not with words. Tony held his hand.

"Does your son have any allergies, Mr.…"

"Stark. And no, not that I know of. We've never had him tested," Tony said anxiously. The ambulance stopped, and Tony followed as they wheeled him into the hospital.

"You'll need to wait here for now, Mr. Stark," replied the EMT as another worker continued to wheel him away. Tony started forward but the EMT gently put a hand on his chest. "We need you to stay here, sir."

"My boy has just gone unconscious, he's crying out in obvious pain, _you _don't have any idea what's wrong with him, and you want me to wait here?" Tony demanded. "I'll go back there if I damn well please, he's my son—" Tony felt a hand on his shoulder.

"It's all right, we'll wait here," Steve said from behind him. The EMT looked at them warily but nodded and went back to his ambulance. Tony whirled around to face his husband.

"What the hell are you thinking? Peter needs us—"

"Last time I checked, neither of us were doctors," Steve said firmly. "We'll just be in the way. We need to let them do their jobs and help Peter, now, Tony." Steve looked at Tony hard, then sniffed. "Have you been drinking? And—what's that flowery smell?"

"Is that really important right now?"

"It's barely even seven o'clock," Steve said, sounding more perplexed than angry. "Tony, what's going on?"

"The EMTs have no idea," Tony said. "And I'll bet the doctor doesn't have any better idea either."

"I'm not talking about with Peter," Steve said. "I meant with you."

"I thought we'd dropped this."

"I'm not dropping anything that affects your mental health, Tony," Steve said seriously. He took Tony's hand. Tony marveled at the warmth—it was so much better than the warmth of alcohol. He could get so very lost in that glow, make himself drunk with Steve…but not at the moment.

"It's nothing, really, just—"

"Mr. Stark?" a doctor called out, sticking his body half out the door they'd wheeled Peter through. Tony practically ran.

"That's me—is Peter ok? What's going on back there?" Tony asked.

"We think your son will be fine," the doctor said uncertainly. "We're—well, his temperature is coming back down. His vitals are fine. We're not really certain what happened, Mr. Stark. As far as we can tell, it might have been anaphylaxis, but oddly there weren't any symptoms of swelling, except a mild bit on his hand, which appears to be a bug bite or sting of some kind—bee sting allergies are fairly common."

"So…he's going to be ok?" Steve asked.

"He should be fine. If you live through anaphylaxis, you'll be fine unless you're exposed to the allergen again. You can take him home now—I suggest you take him to an allergist at your earliest convenience to help prevent further attacks," the doctor said. He opened the door so that Steve and Tony could come back into the room.

A nurse was removing the IV from his arm, and another was setting up a wheelchair. Peter's eyes were open, but clearly not really seeing.

"Peter?" Steve asked worriedly, going straight to his bedside. Tony was right behind him.

"…Pops?" Peter asked groggily.

"Hey, kiddo, you had us really worried there," Steve said gently.

"I…why isn't there a ceiling?" he asked.

"You should go back to sleep, son," Tony said. With a small, involuntary sigh, Peter did just that. Steve picked him up and put him in the wheelchair gently so that they could roll him out. As soon as they were through the doors, Clint and Natasha were there, but they knew to save the questions for later. Nat only asked if he would be fine, to which Steve replied that he would be. Clint brought around his car to the front of the hospital, and they all drove home together, with Steve and Tony in the back, their boy asleep across their laps. When they got home, Steve picked him up and carried him to his bedroom—Peter was barely more than a pillow in weight to him. Tony followed, dragging a chair from the kitchen behind him. He plopped the chair in Peter's room, intent on not moving until his boy woke up again. Steve put a hand on his shoulder and kissed his cheek.

"I'll get you your tablet," he said.

"Try not to break it," Tony said. Steve rolled his eyes, but visibly relaxed. A teasing Tony was a good sign. He left the room. Tony held his son's hand, looking at his boy. He had unruly hair, only slightly lighter in color than Tony's. Peter had his eyebrows, and his jaw—but not his nose. His nose was Rebecca's. His mind—all Tony. But his heart—well, he'd gotten his heart from Steve.

Peter had only ever asked once who his mother was. Tony had told him it was a woman with whom he'd had a brief affair, that she'd not wanted children and signed him over to Tony permanently. Peter had been six years old, then. And he'd never asked again. He'd never asked who his 'real' father was—genetically speaking—and Tony doubted that, had he not inferred it from the discussion about his mother and his obvious similarities to Tony, he never would have. Peter was perfect.

Tony put his head in his hands. What was he going to do? Peter had never asked about his mother again, never indicated that it was a path he wanted to explore. And considering it was Rebecca, it was probably best that he didn't.

But what if he did? What if he wanted to know his mother? Tony had no right to keep him from her, and he knew that, but Rebecca was obviously up to something. And he didn't want his boy near anyone with less than genuine intentions. And what was he going to tell Steve?

"Here, Tony," Steve said, entering Peter's room again. He had his tablet in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other, with a bottle of ibuprofen stuffed in the crook of his elbow. "You'll probably need this. I'll get some water, too. Clint and Natasha are downstairs—they don't want to go until Peter's better." Tony took the tablet and the coffee.

"They should go on their date. Peter should be fine," Tony said.

"I'm not going to try to convince either of them to do something that they don't want to," Steve said with raised eyebrows. Tony chuckled.

"No I guess that's not a very good idea," he agreed.

"Are you going to be ok, Tony?" Steve asked softly.

"I'm fine, Steve," Tony said tiredly. "I just want to look after Peter right now." Steve nodded. He kissed Peter's forehead before leaving the room.

Tony Stark did not leave that chair the whole night through.

The day after, Tony and Steve stayed with their son. They watched movies and ate junk food, and Tony played hooky from work—though they actually called Peter in sick, not wanting to smirch his attendance record. Tony almost brought up Rebecca a thousand times, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. He didn't want to have the conversation at all. But the next day, when Peter was still perfectly fine, the conversation couldn't be put off any longer—and not because Tony didn't want it to be.

Tony took Peter to school that morning on the back of Steve's motorcycle. He pulled back into the driveway, parked, and went inside. He still had to get ready for work, though he still hadn't decided whether or not he was going to bother going in. Couldn't they all get along fine without him? CEO, SCHMEO.

"So what's your plan for the day, Capsicle?" Tony called out. Steve didn't answer. "Steve?" Tony wandered back into the kitchen, just in time to see Steve hang up his cell phone, a very serious expression on his face. "Steve? What's wrong?"

"That was Pepper on the phone," Steve said quietly. Tony could not think of any possible situation in which that sentence would necessitate that particular amount of gravity.

"What did the lovely Miss Potts want?" Tony asked, pouring himself another cup of coffee. Steve continued to look at him very seriously. Tony put the coffee pot down.

"She wanted to know if you were going to be in at the office this morning," Steve said.

"Why didn't she just call me?" Tony asked.

"Because you failed to call yesterday. _And the day before_," Steve said. Tony blinked. Oh. _Oh_.

"Steve—"

"Let me guess, it's 'not what I think'," Steve said.

"I don't know, I'm not a mind reader," Tony said. "What _do_ you think?"

"What do you_ think_ I think?"

"I thought we just established that I'm not Professor X, Steve."

"When I saw you, you were drunk and you smelled like a woman's perfume, and now Pepper calls and tells me you weren't really at work, that you _lied_ to me—what the hell am I _supposed_ to think, Tony?"

"Wait, you think I—Steve, I would never—how could you _think_ that?"

"How could I _not_?" Steve demanded.

"Because you _know_ me," Tony said.

"That's the problem, Tony," Steve said. "I _do_ know you."

"Not as well as you think, apparently," Tony snapped, furious at this turn of events. There he was, his husband, staring at him with those big blue eyes, full of doubt—because he thought he knew Tony, and the conclusion he reached wasn't favorable. Tony Stark may never have changed completely, but there were lines he would not cross. Not anymore, anyway.

"Then what the hell happened? You've been acting weird for days, you get drunk, and you _won't talk to me_," Steve said, his voice pleading. "What's going on with you, Tony?" Tony sat down. He took a long swig of coffee. Steve took a seat next to him, taking his hand like he always did in difficult times.

"It's Rebecca," Tony said. Steve removed his hand. Tony groaned, "No, Steve, it's not—" The house phone rang. Steve picked it up, looking distressed. God, why did telemarketers have the worst timing? And why did Steve always feel the need to pick up and politely listen to their pitches? He had to sign them up for the do-not-call list, Tony resolved.

"Yes, this is Peter's father. He _what_? Yes, yes of course I understand. Three o'clock it is," Steve said. He hung up the phone.

"What was that about?" Tony asked. Steve pinched the bridge of his nose like he had a headache.

"Peter broke a kid's nose," Steve said. Tony laughed.

"What, did he kick the soccer ball wrong in gym class?" he asked.

"No, Tony, he punched him," Steve said. He grabbed Tony's coffee cup.

"Hey, I was using—" he stopped when he saw the look on his face. "Peter really hit someone?"

"_Yes_!" Steve said. He grabbed all the other dishes from breakfast and put them on the counter by the sink. He walked over and started rummaging through the pantry.

"Steve, what are you doing?"

"I'm looking for my gloves and apron," Steve said hotly.

"Oh, _Steve_—"

"Shut up, Tony." Tony clenched his jaw shut and got up from the table.

"I'm not cheating on you," Tony said.

"Shut _up_ Tony," Steve growled. Tony pushed his chair in with far more force than necessary and went upstairs. He wouldn't call Pepper, but he wouldn't go into work either. He had far bigger things to worry about.

**Important additions have been made to this section from LID.**

[["Dad?" Peter blurted out as he walked through the door of the principal's office. Tony was surprised—he had expected to see another black eye, maybe some bruises and scrapes—but other than the fading black eye that he already had, he was injury-free. "Why aren't you at work?"

"Why aren't you being the good kid I know you are?" Tony countered. He got up to face Peter. "Why are you going around punching people?" Peter groaned.

"It wasn't _like that_, Dad—"

"Oh it wasn't like that? Then tell me how it _was_ like Peter. Did you _not_ break another student's nose?"

"He started it—"

"And you sure as shit finished it, didn't you?" Tony said hotly. Principal Mason cleared his throat.

"Uh, Mr. …Stark, sir…this is Mr. Parker's first offense here at Midtown High, and given information supplied by eyewitnesses, we've decided not to pursue any further disciplinary action. We trust you'll handle the situation at home," he said, looking clearly uncomfortable.

"Absolutely," Tony said, still giving Peter _the look_. He grabbed his jacket and put on his motorcycle helmet. Peter followed his dad out the door.

"Dad—"

"We'll talk about this when we get home," Tony said through his helmet. They left the school and Peter rode home on the back of his dad's bike. Before they went into the house, Tony warned Peter, "You've put Pops into a cleaning spree. Watch your step." Perhaps it wasn't fair. Tony had put him in a bit of a snit too, but it _had_ been Peter who'd sent him over the edge.

"Peter!" Pops yelled as he walked into the hallway. Steve was definitely in full on evil-housewife mode—he had on pink rubber gloves, a full apron, and a feather duster in his hand. Tony would have laughed were it not for the murderous expression on his face. He'd laughed once when Cap was in his outfit—it hadn't ended well. "What were you thinking?"

"Uh," Peter said as Tony shut the door behind them and started for the kitchen.

"No, no, not the kitchen Tony, not with those boots on—"

"Oh, Steve, come _on_—"

"I'M JUST TRYING TO MAKE THE HOUSE LOOK NICE _FOR ONCE_!" Steve roared. Tony put his hands up slowly.

"No going in the kitchen. No stepping on the kitchen floor. Got it. I'm backing away now," Tony said. Steve pointed at Peter.

"You. Shoes off. Now," he said. He took off his gloves and handed them to Peter. "Go do the dishes."

"But—"

"_Go_." Peter unlaced his converse shoes and put them neatly by the door. He headed into the kitchen.

"I already gave him a hard time in the principal's office, Steve," Tony said softly. "I think we just need to talk this one out."

"He _hit_ another kid, Tony."

"So? You were always hitting people and getting hit back in the forties—"

"It's not the forties anymore! He shouldn't be hitting people—"

"It was _one_ kid, and probably an asshole—"

"I don't care if it was one kid or twenty, Tony, the principle's the same—"

"I would be a _lot_ more concerned if it was twenty, actually—"

"You're not taking this seriously, are you? You never take anything seriously."

"Oh, Steve, come on, I _told_ you, I already gave him a hard time of it—I just don't think he deserves any more shouting."

"Who said I was going to shout at him? When did I say that was the best way to discipline a kid?"

"You didn't _have_ to say it—it's the way you're acting, I know that's what you were going to do—"

"What do you mean, the way I'm acting?"

"The _cleaning_—you're mad and you're taking it out on the furniture. You do this every time."

"I do this every time? I do this every time Peter hits someone? Right, of course, because this has happened so many times! Just because I yell at _you_ after _you _do something stupid doesn't mean I'm going to yell at Peter—" Except that they both knew that he _was_ yelling at Tony for doing something stupid, that he _was_ cleaning the house because Tony had done something stupid, though Steve wasn't sure what it was yet.

"Then why did you send him off to the kitchen to do the dishes for which we have a perfectly good dishwasher?"

"So that I _won't_ yell at him."

"That makes no sense."

"It makes _perfect_ sense."

"I think your brain is still a bit icy, Capsicle—"

"Oh, God, we're not starting _that_ again, are we? Because I'm not going down that road right now. You're on thin ice with me—" Steve screwed up his face, as Tony struggled to contain a laugh. Steve changed his wording. "_You're in the doghouse with me_, Tony."

"I _shouldn't_ be, Steve—you never let me finish this morning. I'm _not_ cheat—"

"—no, Tony, we're not talking about _that_ right now, Peter's in the kitchen—"

"Do you hear anything?" Tony asked. Steve blinked.

"What? No, why?"

"Peter? Why's the water off?" Tony called.

"Uhhh, it's nothing Dad!" Peter yelled back. "Just—uh—looking for the soap." Tony raised an eyebrow, though Peter couldn't see.

"It's in the pantry," Steve said. Then he turned back to Tony and said in an undertone, "Why would you bring that up right now? Peter can probably _hear _us, he doesn't need to know about this."

"There's nothing to know!" Tony said, exasperated.

_Crash! Crash! Bang! Thump!_ Horrible noises came from the kitchen. Steve rushed to the scene, Tony right behind him. Peter was slumped beneath the counter, surrounded by broken bits of china, wearing a pot for a hat.

"Peter!" said Steve. "Peter are you ok?"

"Uh, fine," Peter said, removing the pot. "But I think I broke the dishes. All of them." Steve offered him a hand up and Peter took it.

"That's ok, I never liked this pattern anyway," Tony said, picking up a broken bit of the floral-patterned dish and dropping it back onto the ground with another loud crash. Steve winced slightly. "These floors are dangerous like this. I keep telling you to use the swiffer—"

"You can't use a swiffer on a shellacked floor, Tony—"

"Then we'll just get new floors—"

"These floors are as old as _me_, you can't just _get rid _of them—"

"Oh, for God's sake, Steve, is that what this is about? Do you think I'm getting rid of you?"

"Peter is in the room!" Steve yelled, outraged. Tony looked around.

"Uh, no he isn't," Tony said. Steve looked around, and then he glared at Tony again.

"Yes, but you didn't know that," he said. "We shouldn't argue with him around, it sets a bad example—"

"Do you _realize_ how _small_ this house is? He can probably _always _hear us when we argue, and we've been doing it for years, no need to stop now—"

"There are certain things a kid shouldn't have to hear from his parents and them arguing is one of them!" Steve said.

"Are we really arguing about arguing?" Tony demanded. "Because I've done a lot of stupid things in my life but I think this is starting to take the cake." Steve sighed.

"Ok, yes, maybe this is getting a little ridiculous," he admitted.

"Are you going to let me tell you what I tried to tell you this morning now?" Tony asked. The oven beeped—Steve must have made something earlier for dinner. Tony didn't know—he'd been up in their room, tinkering with electronics all day.

"Only if you promise to keep these floors," Steve said, a bit sheepishly. Tony wrapped his arms around his husband's waist.

"Anything to keep you happy," Tony said. "I'll even get exact replicas of that awful china if you want." Steve rolled his eyes.

"Oh, please, no. That was a wedding gift, don't you remember? I've always hated it too," Steve said. Tony laughed, but then the house shook, a loud _thud_ coming from upstairs.

"Peter?" Tony called out.

"I'm fine!" Peter yelled back. Tony exchanged a look with Steve and headed towards the stairs.

"Peter, what are you doing up there?" Tony shouted.

"Nothing!" Peter called back.

_Nothing_, Tony thought. _If I had a nickel for every time I'd said 'nothing' to my Dad I'd own another Stark Industries_. He walked up the stairs and knocked on Peter's door.

"Peter, open up," Tony said.

"Uh, I'm not decent," Peter called back.

"I don't care, open the door," Tony replied. Peter went to the door and opened it just a crack, peeking his head out. Tony raised an eyebrow. "What are you doing in there?"

"Stuff," Peter said.

"Stuff?" Tony repeated.

"Yeah, just...stuff," Peter said. He had a look on his face that Tony was far too familiar with. Tony Stark, usually impossible to embarrass, felt himself go red.

"Do w…do we need to have…a _talk_?" It took Peter a second, but then it dawned on Peter what Tony meant, and his eyes widened in horror.

"Oh, God, _no_—I'm not—that's not—oh _gross_, Dad!" Peter said, completely incapable of forming a coherent thought.

"Well, I don't know what to think—we hear all these weird sounds from up here, and you're not decent and you won't open the door—"

"If you have ever loved me, please _stop talking now_," Peter begged. Tony put his hands up.

"Fine, fine," he said. "I'm just looking out for you, Peter. Things have been…weird the past couple of days."

"Yeah," Peter said.

"Well…dinner will be ready soon—come downstairs in a bit," Tony said.

"How did you manage to get any dinner cooked while arguing like that?" Peter asked, almost impressed. Tony smiled grimly.

"We're used to it, Pete. I'm giving you fifteen minutes," Tony said. "And…try not to make too much of a mess in there…"

"GO AWAY," Peter groaned, shutting the door. Tony snickered as he went back down the stairs. Steve was finishing setting the table.

"Everything all right?" he asked. Tony nodded.

"He's up to something, but I have _no idea_ what," Tony replied. Steve set down the last bit of silverware.

"Are we talking now?" Steve asked. "Because I'd really like to know what's going on." Tony sighed.

"Rebecca called me on Tuesday morning, completely out of the blue, demanding that she see Peter," Tony explained. "I asked her what she wanted but she refused to answer me. So I drove down there on Wednesday, and she made it very clear what she wanted—she wanted time with Peter, and she made it clear that she wanted to speak with him about it, that an answer from me wouldn't be good enough. I would just blow her off, but she threatened our family, Steve. Not our safety, but our secrecy. It might as well be the same thing, but what can I do? Go in, guns blazing and take her out? So she's demanded to speak with Peter by Saturday _or else_. And frankly, I don't know what to do," Tony finished. Steve stared at him for a good long while. "Well?"

"Well I think you _fucking well should have told me on Tuesday!_" Steve exploded. Tony was a bit surprised—Steve rarely cursed.

"Steve—"

"I mean, _are you fucking kidding me_ right now? You've kept this from me all week for no damn good reason? You are such a _fucking bastard_, Tony Stark!" Steve yelled.

"Now, wait one minute—"

"You've been talking in secret with our son's birth mother and you didn't even think it rated a mention? _You've_ been making all the decisions about whether or not Peter gets to see her without consulting _me?_ Without consulting _Peter_? What the hell are you thinking, Tony?"

"I'm thinking I'm protecting you!" Tony said. "I'm thinking I'm protecting my son!"

"By keeping this from me?"

"You don't understand, Steve. She threatened—she threatened _our secrecy_," Tony tried to explain.

"Yeah, you fucking _said that already_," Steve snapped.

"_Our secrecy_, Steve. _Ours_," Tony said. Steve narrowed his eyes for a minute, and then they widened a bit as he suddenly understood that Tony didn't mean their address. He meant the whole package—that Iron Man and Captain America were married and lived together in Brooklyn with their teenage son.

"I can't believe you didn't tell me all of this _for exactly those reasons!_" Steve said.

"I was protecting you."

"You were protecting yourself," Steve snapped. They glared at each other long and hard.

"Um," Peter said, "dads? Is dinner ready?"

"What?" Steve asked. Tony wondered how long their son had been standing there. "Oh, yeah." He put on oven gloves and took a casserole dish out of the oven. "Take a seat, Peter."

Peter sat down, and his dads followed suit. Tony dished out casserole silently.

"So what happened today, Peter?" Tony asked finally.

"Flash was picking on Mark. Again. He was going to beat him up, so I distracted him so Mark could get away. I just dodged his punches at first, but when I turned my back to leave he charged at me and I punched him in the nose. That's it," Peter said. "And I didn't even _really_ punch him—he mostly just…ran into my fist…"

"Well, Peter, that—" Tony started, with a funny look on his face, but after a moment, he couldn't contain it—he just started laughing. "He ran into your fist?"

"Mostly," Peter said. Even Steve had a small smile on his face.

"Is this the same kid that gave you the black eye?" Steve asked.

"Yeah," Peter replied.

"So you wanted revenge, huh?" Steve asked.

"No," Peter said insistently. "It just sort of…happened."

"Well, don't go around punching people, Peter," Tony said. "And…I think that covers it."

"Look Peter, I get that this kid is a bully," Steve said. "I don't like bullies. And I'm not going to tell you to run away, because they'll just keep coming. But next time—try not to break something, yeah?"

"Yeah, ok," Peter agreed. He dug into his casserole, and the family sat in silence for a while. Tony would have liked to think that it was comfortable silence, as often befell their little family—but he knew that wasn't the case. Steve's grip on his glass of milk was too hard, and Peter fiddled with the food on his plate. The silence was anything _but_ comfortable. Peter finished up and put his plate in the dishwasher. His dads bid him goodnight. As soon as Tony heard the door upstairs close, he opened his mouth—and off he and Steve went again, around and around in circles, never getting anywhere.

At the end of the night, Steve had resolved to sleep downstairs again. And Tony couldn't even bring himself to care.


	3. Chapter 3

Steve Rogers needed only three things in life: Love (and _lovin'_), a stable family life, and for the world to be safe and the people in it to be genuinely good. And at the moment, absolutely none of Steve Roger's needs were being fulfilled. He got up off the couch, which he'd slept in overnight, his back complaining from the inadequate surface. He quietly snuck upstairs and into his and Tony's room.

Tony was dead asleep, as usual. Whenever Steve could _get_ him to sleep, he completely passed out. He was impossible to wake up. So Steve didn't worry about being ultra quiet as he changed his clothes and gathered up his duffel bag to go to the gym.

The Avengers had their own gym, of course, but Steve rarely ever used it. For one thing, Thor was in there constantly, and there were only so many "Brother in arms, you are such a mighty human! But still so tiny. Would you care to race me on the running machine?" that he could take. For another thing, it was all too…modern…for Steve.

It wasn't that he _disliked_ this new century. It had brought him Tony and Peter and all of the Avengers. But he could do without some of the technology. He'd rather run around a track than on a treadmill. He'd rather work out in silence than to an mp3 player, or to a stereo system pumping out tunes overhead. So instead Steve headed to the gym he'd used in the forties.

He'd never gone there after his transformation into Captain America in the forties, but he'd been there plenty as scrawny Steve Rogers, the wimpy asthmatic trying desperately to improve but always failing miserably. The owner had taken pity on him, often giving him boxing lessons when he had spare time. When Steve had woken from his 70 year sleep, he had ended up wandering back to the place, one of the only places he remembered that was still in tact.

The gym had kept all of its decorations, and plenty of their equipment was 'old school'. They didn't have a sound system, they didn't have treadmills. It had been preserved as a vintage gym, which was their selling point, and Steve loved it. The first few times he'd gone, he'd been absolutely mobbed by people wanting autographs and fighting tips and the like. Eventually, the owner of the gym—who was the last owner's grandson—took pity on Steve and handed him the key to the back door.

"Come whenever you want, come when the gym isn't open, Captain. Just lock up when you leave," he'd said. So Steve got his own forties-era private gym, and the owner had gotten Captain America to come to his son's sixth birthday party. All in all Steve thought it wasn't a fair deal on the owner's part, but he appreciated it. Now 27, the son ran the gym and continued the tradition of allowing Captain America his own private time, so long as that time was before the gym opened or after it closed.

On this particular Saturday morning, Steve headed in at six in the morning, two hours before the gym would open at eight. He took out all of his emotions on punching bags as he thought about Tony. His behavior this week troubled him to no end. He'd acted this way only once before when they were together, and that—well, Steve guess it had ended well. They'd ended up getting through a major argument and trust issues, and they'd ended up with Peter. But it certainly hadn't been pleasant, and Steve had no desire to repeat the experience.

When he finished at the gym he didn't feel any better than when he'd started. He still didn't know what to do about Tony, still didn't know what to do about Rebecca, still didn't know what to tell Peter, or what to do about his recent problems at school, either. He opened up the door to the house, and went inside. He was surprised when he came face to face with his son.

[""Peter?" Steve asked. "What are you doing up?"

"Do you do this every Saturday?" Peter blurted out the first thing that came to mind. "Has my childhood been a lie? Because I always thought you just stayed in bed with Dad, but do you—do you actually go out and do things and just come back?"

"…No…" Steve said. "…Do _you_?"

"No," Peter replied.

"So what are you doing? Are you going somewhere?" Steve asked. Peter was already dressed in jeans and his favorite hoodie, and he was obviously headed for the door. Peter avoided his eyes.

"I…uh…well yeah…see, I've got this project that I have to work on for chemistry, and well, my lab partner, he uh, he's in sports so the only time he had free this week was nine o'clock on Saturday morning. Sucks right?" Peter said. Steve looked at him hard.

"…What sport?" he asked.

"Oh, you know, he's a jock. He does pretty much everything," Peter said quickly. "Right now it's uh, football. And um wrestling or something. I'm not really sure, I didn't ask too many questions." Peter said this all awfully fast. Steve could tell he was making it up on the spot, but what was he going to do about it? Were there really bad places that _Peter_ could go? Especially at eight in the morning on a Saturday?

"All right," Steve said slowly. "But next time, Pete, let your Dad or I know before you head out, ok?"

"I'll be back before noon," Peter assured him, but Steve shook his head.

"If I got up at nine-thirty and you weren't in bed, I'd have all of S.H.I.E.L.D. out looking for you before noon, Peter," Steve said.

"I seriously hope you'd try to catch me on my cell first," Peter said, a bit mortified. Steve just chuckled. Like he'd remember cell phones existed when he was panicking about his son being missing.

"Probably not. But Tony would," Steve said. "I'll see you in time for lunch, Peter."

"Yeah," Peter said, slipping past him and opening the door. "Bye Pops!"

"Bye," Steve said, still following him with his eyes suspiciously.] Peter was up to something, but he couldn't guess what. If he was going out drinking with his friends (doubtful), he wouldn't be doing it at eight in the morning. If he was sneaking off to see a girl (again, doubtful), he _probably_ wouldn't be doing it at eight in the morning. So whatever he was up to, it couldn't be that bad, could it?

Well, Steve hoped not, anyway.

He went up the stairs and into his and Tony's room. Tony was still fast asleep, his arms curled around Steve's pillow. Steve's heart gave a little twinge at that. He put down his duffel bag, kicked off his shoes, and climbed into bed. For a minute, he just looked at his husband. When Tony was asleep, it was so difficult to remember why he was mad at him. Steve brushed back a lock of Tony's hair. He missed his husband. He missed his touch, missed their meaningful conversations, missed their playful banter, missed making love when Peter was out of the house. Like this, in bed, they could both be at peace with each other, with the world. In their bedroom, it was easy to forget everything else that was happening, which is why Steve leaned forward and placed a gentle kiss on his husband's lips. At that, Tony stirred.

"Mmm?" Tony moaned, opening one eye a crack.

"Good morning," Steve said quietly, and then he kissed him again. It took Tony a moment to awaken, but once he did, he responded enthusiastically. Maybe, Steve, thought, maybe Tony had just forgotten how much Steve cared. Maybe _Steve_ had forgotten how much he cared, how much he loved Tony. Maybe he just needed to remind him. Steve moved from Tony's lips to plant kisses on his jaw, and then his neck—oh, the _sounds_ Tony made, he'd missed that. But then Tony was wriggling away. Steve looked up and frowned.

"Peter," Tony gasped. They tried not to have sex with Peter in the house due to how thin the walls were. Especially now that he was old enough to know what exactly was going on. Steve smiled and dove back to Tony's neck.

"Out of the house until noon. Chemistry project," Steve murmured.

"You're mad at me," Tony said. "I'm a little mad at you." Steve sucked on that one spot on Tony's collarbone that never failed to make his husband's toes curl, and Tony gasped.

"Not right now, I think," Steve teased, stripping Tony out of his black tank top, releasing the full glow of the arc reactor. Steve loved that glow, loved that reactor. He loved that it kept his husband alive, for one thing. But he also loved just how perfectly _Tony_ it was. Of _course_ Tony would need a piece of technology surgically implanted in his chest to live. It was Tony. He couldn't live without technology—literally and metaphorically. Steve planted kisses around the edges, told his husband how much he loved it. Tony just moaned some more. Steve loved that. He traveled further, slowly divesting his husband of his sweatpants and boxers.

Oh, the _noises_ Tony made when Steve lowered his head.

Eventually Tony demanded that Steve have _his_ clothes off, too. Fair's fair. They made love loudly and enthusiastically—it had been a while, after all. Steve loved the way Tony squirmed beneath him. Heck, who was he kidding? He loved everything about the man. Maybe they both just needed a little reminding. Afterwards they lay together in the tangled sheets, sweaty and otherwise messy, with Tony in Steve's arms.

"Steve?" Tony said.

"Mmm?" Steve asked, still a bit blissed out.

"We need to do that more often."

"Mmm," Steve said in agreement, kissing the back of his husband's neck, trailing down his spine. Tony moaned.

"I didn't mean—"

"Right now," Steve chuckled. "I know." But he wasn't completely sure if he cared. Tony turned around to face him, placing a hand on his chest.

"You need another shower," he said.

"So I do," Steve agreed. "Care to join me?"

"When have I ever not?"

Showers were good, Steve reflected. This one had been even better than the one he'd had at the gym. By about a thousand percent. He toweled himself off while Tony, already dressed, checked his tablet, because Tony couldn't be away from his technology for ten minutes for anything less than sex.

"Hey Steve, when did you say Peter would be home, again?" Tony asked with a frown.

"Before noon," Steve replied, pulling on his boxers. "Why?"

"Mm, no reason," Tony said. He pulled out his stark phone.

"Who are you calling?"

"Peter."

"Why?"

"It's 12:30. Just checking in," Tony said. Steve nodded.

"Good idea," he said. His stomach growled loudly. "And on that note, I'm going to get started with breakfast. Lunch? Brunch, I guess." He wandered downstairs, getting started on breakfast. He turned on the sound system, his iPod playing swing music at low levels as he whipped up pancake batter. After they finished, Steve pulled out his phone. _12:45_. Hm. He dialed Peter's number and put the phone to his ear.

It rang. It rang again. It rang again and again and again, but no one ever picked up.

"_Hey, you've reached Peter Parker. I'm not around, I guess, but uh, leave a message and I'll get back to you."_ Steve hung up. Tony came downstairs, still glued to his tablet.

"Hey, did you get a response from Peter earlier?" Steve asked.

"Huh?" Tony asked. "Oh, uh, no. I figure he'll be home soon."

"Yeah, I guess," Steve said, worry ghosting over his features before he set out the pancakes on a serving plate. "Help yourself, I'm about to make scrambled eggs, too."

"You spoil me," Tony said as he flipped through blueprints on his tablet.

"I know," Steve said with a smirk. He and Tony stayed in comfortable silence until Steve had finished making the eggs and pulled the bacon out of the oven. He turned off the swing music.

"You should let me take you dancing some time," Tony said. Steve smiled softly.

"I don't dance, Tony, you know that," Steve replied, sitting down and heaping food on his plate. An extra crazy metabolism meant he needed extra crazy amounts of food. When they'd first gotten together Tony whined that Steve was going to eat him out of house and home. Steve dialed Peter's number again, but got the voicemail. Tony frowned.

"Peter still not picking up?" Tony asked.

"Yeah," Steve said. "I don't know what's gotten into him. He's usually so…"

"Responsible? Punctual? Careful? Open?" Tony supplied. Steve nodded. Tony shrugged. "Maybe we're finally hitting those infamous 'rebellious years' that everyone told us about. Maybe my DNA is finally starting to show."

"Oh, Lord, Tony, don't scare me," Steve said in (mostly) mock horror.

"I'm concerned about him as much as you are," Tony said, looking at his own phone—probably checking to see if Peter had called. "I'm especially worried about how we're going to handle this whole…Rebecca thing." Steve tensed a little.

"Well, _we_ aren't, right? It's Peter's decision to make," Steve said cautiously. Tony shifted uncomfortably. It was obvious he had an objection to make, but neither of them were quite willing to break the peace they'd made.

"Steve, I don't think it's a good decision. Rebecca—you don't know her. She's not a good influence, and I seriously question her reasons for doing this," Tony said.

"She's his _mother,_ Tony," Steve said with a sigh. "We can't ignore that. He has to be curious."

"He's never said anything about being curious."

"It doesn't mean he isn't!"

"I don't want him talking to her," Tony said. "She's manipulative, she's flaky, she's—she's _not a good person_, Steve."

"She's his _mother_."

"That doesn't have to mean anything!"

"On what planet? Because here on Earth it sure as hell does mean something whether you want it to or not."

"We could just refuse to tell him. Refuse to let her talk to him. Problem solved. Peter never gets his heart broken, never has to deal with her, and she can go shove her agenda up her—"

"And what, let her shine a spotlight on our whole family?" Steve asked. "Let her make us a media circus?" Tony's eyes darkened.

"That's what this is about, isn't it? This isn't about Peter meeting his mother—this is about exposure," Tony stated.

"It's _partly_ about that, sure," Steve said. "How could it not be? All of Peter's life we've kept things as normal as possible, gave him a fake last name, sent him to public school, never stepped out of this house without a helmet on—"

"But was it all for Peter?" Tony asked quietly.

"What do you mean?" Steve asked, genuinely puzzled.

"Was all the secrecy for Peter, or was it for us, too? Was it—are you—are you ashamed of me?" Tony asked seriously.

"_What_? Am I ashamed—are you kidding me?" Steve asked, flabbergasted. "Tony, we've been married for fifteen years—"

"Fourteen and ten months, but go on."

"—and you're seriously asking me whether or not I'm _ashamed_ of you?"

"We never go out in public."

"_Because of Peter_!"

"You won't let me take you dancing."

"That's a completely separate issue."

"Is it? Or is it because you'd rather not Captain Steve Rogers be seen out with Tony Stark—or is it because you'd rather not Captain Steve Rogers be seen out romantically with a man, period?" Tony asked, and something inside Steve snapped. Gone went all the good feelings from that morning, gone went his desire to kiss and make up.

"I can't believe you'd ask me that, Tony," Steve said quietly.

"Why have we kept our marriage a secret for so long?" Tony asked, everything suddenly pouring out. "We haven't really needed to."

"Oh yeah, and let all the paparazzi follow us around and eventually lead them back _here_ to _Peter_—"

"Oh, like we couldn't evade them—we're not both superheroes or anything…"

"We had this discussion when we _got_ married, I thought it was settled!" Steve said. "This is unbelievable—Tony why haven't you _talked to me_ about this before?" Steve was less mad now. Now—now he just had an ache in his chest. He was hurt. Hurt that Tony would think so badly of him, hurt that he hadn't felt comfortable talking to him, hurt that he'd bottled this up for fifteen years and never said a word, and disappointed in himself, that he couldn't tell. Did he really know his husband so little? Steve felt a little sick to his stomach. Tony just stayed silent, and then flipped on his phone, calling Peter. He hung up a little bit later, never having opened his mouth. Peter still wasn't answering, then.

"Do…do you think I'm homophobic, Tony?"

"Now that's a ridiculous thing to say—you're married to a man."

"Yes, but do you think I'm homophobic?" Steve asked seriously. Tony shifted uncomfortably. "You _do!_ You think I'm homophobic!"

"I didn't _say_—"

"You didn't have to _say_," Steve spat angrily. "So, fucking you into bed this morning was not enough to prove that I am, in fact, not homophobic. I'll remember to do that in front of a large crowd next time."

"Exhbitionist? That's a new side of Steve Rogers—"

"Why is everything a joke to you?" Steve asked hotly.

"Because the thought of you fucking me in front of everyone is simultaneously hot and _hilarious_—" Steve grabbed his jacket off the back of one of the kitchen chairs. "Oh, Steve, don't—"

"Don't _what_ Tony?" Steve snapped.

"Don't _go_," Tony said. "We had a good morning—"

"Yeah, and a pretty fucking awful afternoon, it's turning out, and frankly I just don't want to deal with this right now," Steve said.

"Steve—"

But Steve was already out the door, helmet over his head. His gym would be crowded, so Steve hopped on his motorcycle and headed to the Avengers HQ to blow off some steam—probably with Thor—for a while. When he arrived, he called Peter, but Peter still didn't answer. Steve was beginning to get a little concerned. It was 1:30 and he still wasn't picking up. Steve supposed Peter could be at home by now, but he doubted it.

He headed onto the treadmill, but he kept checking his phone. Fifteen minutes later he called again, but still no one picked up. He ran for another ten, but Peter still weighed on his mind. Maybe he would respond better to threats.

Steve whipped out his phone and sent a text.

PETER WHERE ARE YOU GET HOME RIGHT NOW YOU SHOULD BE GROUNDED AFTER YESTERDAY AND I LET YOU OUT OF THE HOUSE AND EVERYTHING AND NOW WE DON'T KNOW WHERE YOU ARE GET YOUR ASS BACK HOME

Yes, Steve thought, that might evoke a response. Sure enough, his phone pinged moments later.

PETER

On my way home, phone on silent, lost track of time, sorry. Be home in 20.

YOU ARE SO GROUNDED

Steve put away his phone and headed out of the gym.

"Leaving so soon, brother in arms?" Thor thundered from across the gym where he was lifting at least six hundred pounds.

"I have a child in need of some discipline," Steve called back. He opened the door and headed back home on his motorcycle. He opened up the door to see Tony sitting at the kitchen table.

"Did you—"

"Get a text from Peter? Yes," Steve said. "I figure we'll give him a talk when we get home."

"What, about his behavior or about Rebecca?"

"Both." Tony's mouth was set in a frown.

"I don't think—"

"It's not up to us, Tony," Steve said, his tone final. "If you won't tell him, I will." Tony looked up at his husband.

"So this has nothing to do with us, then? It's all about Peter?"

"Yes," Steve said. Tony narrowed his eyes.

"So if I were to go on the Late Show tonight and announce to the world that we'd been married for fifteen years, you'd have no problem with that?" he asked.

"Tony, it's more complicated than—"

"No, it's not Steve. It's not more complicated than that," Tony said angrily. "Peter's almost out of high school. Soon it won't matter if they come snooping around the house because he won't even be here, he'll be at university, living in a dorm. So if I went on the Late Show then, in September next year when Peter's out of the house, you'd have no problem with it?" Steve opened his mouth to say something, to say no, but nothing came out. His stomach twisted painfully. Why couldn't he say it? Tony's eyes darkened. Then he shook his head and put his head in his hands.

Was…_was_ he homophobic? Steve questioned himself. Did he have a problem with being with Tony, with being with a man? Was he embarrassed? What was this feeling that he couldn't identify? He'd been with Tony for twenty years, had told close friends, had told all of S.H.I. . What about telling the world made him shrink away?

He heard the front door close, and Steve looked up. The anger must have shown on his face, because Peter's eyes widened a little.

["Where have you been?" Steve asked.

"I told you, I had a—"

"Chemistry project to work on, yes, I know," Steve said. "What I _don't_ know is why it took you six hours."

"It's a really delicate project, Pops," Peter said, joining them in the kitchen, "and—and it's like half of our grade. We were working really hard on it and I had my phone on silent and I didn't realize what time it was until we were finished. I'm sorry." Steve gave him a long look. Peter swallowed, an involuntary nervous reaction. He was hiding something—but did it really matter right now? Steve sighed, his anger dissolving.

"Just…text next time Peter. And sit down, your dad and I have something we need to tell you," Steve said. Peter looked between his parents, another nervous expression on his face. He looked worried.

"What's going on?" Peter asked. "Is…is someone hurt?"

"No, Peter, no one's hurt," Tony said tiredly. "Sit down." Reluctantly, Peter pulled up a chair and sat down. "Rebecca called me on Tuesday morning." At Peter's expression, Tony amended, "Rebecca Masters. Your birth mother, Peter."

"Well…what did she want?" Peter asked.

"To talk to you," Tony replied. "She wants to meet you, Peter. But you don't have to do anything you don't want to—you can just tell her that you don't want to see her."

"She wants to meet me?" Peter asked. Steve watched his son's expression carefully, but he couldn't read the emotions on his face—surprise he could identify, but that was about it.

"She does but you don't have to meet her if you don't want to Peter," Tony said firmly. "We don't want you to do anything that you're not comfortable wi—"

"I want to," Peter interrupted. Well, Steve hadn't exactly expected that. And apparently neither had Tony.

"Well, that's…Well…Uh," Tony said, unable to say anything more.

"That's your decision to make and we support you," Steve supplied helpfully.

"Yeah. That. Sure," Tony said, but he didn't look happy about it. Well, Steve wasn't exactly happy about it, either. Steve handed Peter the house phone and rattled off a number.

"She wants you to call today, if you want to," Steve told him gently. Peter stared at the phone.

"Ok," he said. He looked at Steve, and then at Tony. "Is…is everything ok?" Steve exchanged a glance with Tony. Everything was definitely not fine.

"Everything's fine, Peter," Steve lied, but Tony said nothing. Peter looked at the phone in his hand, and then got up from the table.

"Where are you going?" asked Tony.

"I'm going to go make a phone call," Peter said. Tony and Steve followed Peter with their eyes as he made his way upstairs. They heard his bedroom door shut.]

Steve looked at Tony. Tony looked at Steve. Steve went upstairs without another word. He got out his duffel bag and shoved some clothes and essentials inside, then slung it over his back. He went back downstairs. Tony looked up.

"Gym?" he asked flatly, looking like he sorely wanted a drink in his hand; his eyes kept sliding to the cabinet where they once kept the alcohol, before Peter was born.

"No, Tony," Steve said. Tony just looked at him. "I think…I think we need a little time apart. Just…to clear our heads. And I'm sick of sleeping on the couch."

"What are you saying?"

"I'll…I'll be back in a couple of days, I expect," Steve said, almost incapable of speaking past the lump in his throat and the pit in his stomach. The look on Tony's face made him want to take it all back, but he knew that this was for the best.

"And how do you know I'll be here when you get back?" Tony asked. Steve's stomach twisted painfully again.

"I don't. I'm not even sure I expect you to be," Steve replied honestly. Because of course they weren't talking about him being at the house. Of course Tony would still be at the house. He had Peter to take care of after all. Steve glanced up at the staircase—but no, he wouldn't say goodbye. He didn't want to worry Peter. And he'd probably only be gone for a couple of days. It was just time to cool off and clear their heads. Tony would make up some excuse. "Goodbye, Tony." Steve waited but Tony didn't say goodbye. He just watched him. He watched him walk out the door without a word.

It was odd waking up in a bed that wasn't his and Tony's. The cheap hotel's sheets had been scratchy, their hygiene questionable, and the breakfast inedible. Steve wanted to go home, but he knew that he couldn't. Not until he could look Tony in the eye and say,

"_I don't care. Scream it from the rooftops. Post a video of us making out on youtube. Make it into a rap song. Tweet it. Go on the Late show. Because I love you. Because it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks of me, or of Captain America_."

It was everything that he wanted to say, but he hadn't been able to get the words out. Because it _did_ matter what people thought. Not of him, not of Steve Rogers, the kid from Brooklyn. That didn't matter at all. But what people thought of _Captain America_ was an entirely different matter. People had to believe in him to believe in the Avengers and all the good that they did. And if they couldn't believe in him, if they couldn't trust him, their whole stint as superheroes could come crumbling down to an unfavorable public and media smear campaigns. And he just didn't know how America would react when they found out that not only was Captain America gay (well, bi, but that hardly mattered given that he was married to Tony) but that he was married to Iron Man—and that he had been hiding it for fifteen years. What else was he hiding, they might wonder?

Nothing, of course.

Except Peter. Peter, who was a normal teenager and had never known life any other way. Peter, who had never been the center of paparazzi interest. Peter, who had no means of protecting himself against all the whackjobs the Avengers fought on a weekly basis (or daily basis if it was a bad week or month or year).

Once they started digging, they'd find Peter. And so would anyone else who might mean him harm.

Steve sipped his coffee as he sat in the conference room at the Avengers' HQ, reading the morning paper. Tony always read it on a tablet, but Steve also had it delivered to the house. This morning he'd picked it up from a street vendor on his way to HQ.

"There's a story on page six I'd like you to take a look at," said Nick Fury from behind him. He looked up to see Agent Fury, Clint, Natasha, Thor, and Bruce filing in behind him. He wondered briefly where Tony was, but then realized that, after last night, he was kind of glad that the Iron Man was shirking his duties. Steve turned to page six. There was an article about some Wall Street scandal, a brief piece on fall fashions, and a small article detailing an apartment fire from which a baby had been saved by—

"'The Amazing Spiderman?'" Steve asked.

"Witnesses said he could shoot spider webs from his hands and stick to walls," Agent Fury said. "He's reported as wearing a red and blue suit with black web designs and a spider emblem on the chest. Called himself Spiderman."

"So, what are we looking at? One of Professor X's kids gone rogue?" Natasha asked.

"He's not theirs," Agent Fury said. "I called up Professor Xavier but he said he's not aware of anyone with that type of mutation."

"So…the webs are technology based?" Bruce asked. "And he's got…what, magic Velcro on his hands?"

"We're unsure of what we're looking at, Doctor Banner," Agent Fury said. "Professor X says he's not a mutant, but he says that doesn't rule out…less natural types of mutations. Like your…other form."

"So this could be some kind of science experiment gone wrong?" Steve asked.

"It's possible. I want you all to keep an eye out for a red and blue '_Spiderman' _swinging off buildings like some kind of urban Tarzan, using New York like it's his own personal playground. We've put a watch on him, but we don't know where he is or who he is or anything about him. So far, not one damn cell phone or traffic camera has snapped a shot of him," Fury said.

"He seems pretty harmless," Bruce said. "I mean, saving babies from fires and all…It's not exactly Green Goblin territory." Steve thought that was a ridiculous nickname—the _Green Goblin_. Some newspaper—the _Daily Bugle_, Steve thought—had found out about the incident in California and given him that name. The other Avengers had picked it up and started using it, but Steve thought it was a bit unhealthy. A fairy tale name like that might cause the public a bit of panic.

"S.H.I.E.L.D. has watch over all persons of interest," Fury stated. "If he's not a total lunatic, he could prove useful, in which case I might send you out on a recruitment mission, Captain. For the time being, keep your eyes peeled."

"Have we had any more 'Green Goblin' sightings?" Steve asked.

"Not a damn one," Agent Fury sighed. "I don't like it. He's got to be planning something, and I'm betting it's not tea with the Queen."

Right at that moment, Maria Hill rushed in.

"Sir, the Bronx is under attack! The Green Goblin is setting off bombs!"

"Everyone suit up!" Steve yelled.

"Maria, call Stark!" Agent Fury commanded. Everyone went their separate ways.

"What the hell is he thinking?" Natasha asked.

"He's not," Bruce replied.

"If he is, we've got an even bigger problem," Steve said gravely. They changed at lightning speed (Thor, literally), and set off in S.H.I.E.L.D. issue vehicles for the Bronx. As they approached, Steve could see chaos. Tony, whose rocket boosters were much faster than cars, was already there, circling around the Green Goblin like an obnoxious fly, exploding his bombs in mid-air with his repulsors. Steve opened up the comm. system.

"Iron Man, keep it up, keep him distracted," Steve ordered. "Hawkeye, get up on a building and try to take him out from above, Iron Man try and keep him low if you can, and away from civilians. Natasha, can you jump up on that glider with me? We'll try and throw him off."

"And how are we going to get up there?" Natasha asked. Steve looked at Bruce, but of course Bruce was already gone, replaced by the giant green thing everyone called the Hulk.

"Hulk—how about a lift?" Steve asked. The Hulk seemed to grin and Natasha and Steve climbed into his hands. Even after all these years, Steve was a bit wary about climbing on the Hulk, but Bruce had a much better handle on the monster than he had when they'd first met. A lot of that was actually thanks to Tony. The Hulk launched Steve and Natasha onto the glider, and Steve grabbed the back of the Goblin, who yelled, while Natasha attacked him from the front. But the glider wasn't stable was they fought him, and it began to spin and twist and fly upside down. Iron Man had to catch Natasha as she fell, and Steve was barely able to hold on, though he also had hold of the thrashing Green Goblin. Iron Man put Natasha down as the glider flew through the air, headed straight at a brick building. Steve didn't have a choice—he let his hand drop. The glider exploded as it impacted on the building. Steve was free falling through the air with the Goblin—but Thor grabbed him. Oh, right. He'd forgotten to give Thor his orders. They landed on the ground fairly hard, and Steve lost his grip on the Goblin, who rolled away.

"Grab him!" Steve yelled, but the Goblin was fast.

"Next time, my friends!" the Goblin shouted, and then threw something on the ground. With a flash, a bang, and some smoke, he was gone, just like in a magic show.

"The hell was that?" Steve asked.

"He's using the sewer system!" Natasha shouted. She jumped down the open manhole. Steve jumped after her, and so did Iron Man.

They searched for over an hour, but the Green Goblin had disappeared completely. The Avengers crawled out of the sewers, sweaty and otherwise utterly disgusting. Steve wasn't sure that ten showers would be enough to make him feel clean.

"We'll regroup again tomorrow," Fury said. "For now, everyone back to your lives. I'll call if we get any more information." The Avengers all let out a collective sigh. Typically, this would be when Tony would suggest they go for Shawarma or Chinese or something, but Tony made no such suggestion. Clint and Natasha mentioned something about getting back to their kids, Thor said he had a chicken in the fridge and a lovely, fertile woman at home (Jane and Thor were, as far as Steve could tell, trying to have kids), Bruce was working on some experiment he said, and Steve and Tony said nothing. They just went their separate ways.

After three separate scrub downs, Steve finally stepped out of the tiny hotel shower, toweling off his golden hair. His phone, which he'd thrown on the bed, buzzed.

_Six New Texts_

TONY

_Sent at 12pm_

Is peter w/you?

_Sent at 12:13pm_

He isn't at home and his phone is in his room

_Sent at 12:20pm_

I don't know where u r either pick up your damn phone

_Sent at 12:22pm_

Goddamn it Steve

_Sent at 12:23pm_

PICK UP YOUR PHONE PETER IS MISSING

_Sent at 12:25_

Just tell me he's with you.

Steve's eyes widened and his heart picked up its pace. He called Tony.

"Fucking finally!" Tony snarled. "You couldn't have called to tell me he was with you half an hour ago? I've been worr—"

"Tony, Peter's not with me," Steve said urgently. "He didn't leave a note?"

"No. He's not with you?" Tony asked. "Shit."

"Maybe he just stepped out for a walk," Steve said, but he didn't even believe it. Peter never left without a note, and he never left without his cellphone.

"I'm calling S.H.I.E.L.D."

"I'll meet you at HQ in ten minutes," Steve said, and hung up his phone. He threw on clothes and bolted out the door, his heart in his throat.

_Peter, where are you_?


	4. Chapter 4

_Tony_

_Sunday, 8 AM_

It was all just one big jigsaw puzzle as Tony saw it. It wasn't that new things needed to be _created_ or _invented_ or even _imagined_. Tony would leave those things to artists, like Peter and Steve. Technology was all about puzzles to Tony. He wasn't inventing anything—just putting together the pieces, just _discovering_ what was already there, just waiting to be found. And it was the looking, the piecing, that soothed him more than anything. There was nothing like the high of discovering something new, nothing as consoling as soldering together a new piece for his armor, nothing like gulping down more coffee and finishing a long-term project.

Well, no, that wasn't quite true. There were a _few_ things like it, there were a _few_ substitutes, but all of those substitutes Tony had sworn off when he married Steve—unless they involved Steve himself. And right now, Tony didn't have Steve and he didn't have a substitute, so back to the puzzle he went.

He didn't know how long he'd been working on this puzzle in particular. Peter had gotten home from dinner with Bruce and shortly afterwards he'd headed into the garage. He hadn't slept, but that wasn't exactly unusual for him. He tweaked a circuit on the new arm, engrossed in his work.

"You know, if I were you, I'd work up in the penthouse when I'd work at night. That way I could see the sun come up," Bruce's voice drifted across the room. Tony looked up as his friend walked over, two coffee cups in his hand. Bruce offered him one, Tony took it gratefully and had a sip.

"You get this at that hippie coffee shop on third avenue? With the free-trade beans and the girl that smells like—"

"Do you like it or not?"

"It's delicious," Tony admitted. "And I'm all for free trade."

"Saving the world, one coffee bean at a time," Bruce said. "It can be Iron Man's new motto."

"Only if I add an espresso machine to the suit," Tony replied. "Not a bad idea, actually…" Tony smirked and then went back to his work. Bruce took a sip of coffee and leaned on the workbench. They stayed like that for a while, in companionable silence, until Tony spoke again.

"Hey, wait a minute," Tony said, narrowing his eyes. "You came in here with two cups of coffee."

"That I did," Bruce agreed.

"And you came in _here_. You're not in your lab downstairs."

"No, I'm not."

"How did you know I'd be up here and in need of coffee?"

"I had a hunch," Bruce replied. "Peter had dinner with me last night, I assume he told you?"

"Yeah, yeah, Chinese, he mentioned it," Tony said, still feeling a pang of guilt when he saw Peter's expression when he said his Pops was gone.

"He mentioned that you and Steve have been fighting. He seemed really worried, Tony. What's going on?" Bruce asked gently. Bruce was always gentle. Well, except when he turned into a giant green monster and went on a rampage, destroying everything in sight. But he was hardly to blame for that.

"This is really good coffee, Bruce," Tony said. "Is it because it's free trade?"

"Tony."

"Or do they put a little something…_extra_ in it? You know, looking at who runs the shop I wouldn't doubt it—"

"Tony."

"—and God knows you could use a little 'something extra' to relax every now and again."

"_Tony_," Bruce said more forcefully. "Don't do this bullshit with me. I've known you, what, twenty years now? Come on." Tony squirmed for a moment, debating, and then he finally sighed.

"We're not just fighting. Steve left last night," Tony admitted. He felt his chest tighten and his stomach roll at the admission.

"That…doesn't sound like Steve," Bruce said carefully. "You two have…well, you've been through a lot together, and he's never walked out before. What changed?"

"Maybe the fact that I was pushing him out the door," Tony said with a heavy sigh. "I mean, not literally. Metaphorically. He—we—I don't even know what's going on with us anymore. He was mad at me, then I was mad at him, then we were both ok and then suddenly he was mad at me again and then _I_ was _really_ mad at him…"

"Is this marital problems or a tennis match?" Bruce asked dryly.

"It's usually the same thing for us," Tony replied. "He just—he—I asked about maybe…_outing_ ourselves. To everyone. We're sort of getting blackmailed by Peter's biological mother, but that's not even the real issue anymore. So I asked him about it. And he said no. Emphatically no. 'How could you ever think we would' no."

"And you took it personally," Bruce stated. Tony stared at him.

"How could I _not_? What about that _isn't_ personal? Bruce, we've been in the closet for twenty years—"

"With the general public."

"—how can I not take that personally? I'm sick of hiding. I want to show the world our son, our beautiful, brilliant boy. I want to dance with Steve at my company's Christmas party, I want to kiss him on the streets after a battle. I'm done with hiding. And I told him as much, told him I wanted us to really be an _us_ and he threw it in my face," Tony finished. "And then he left."

"You wanted him gone," Bruce said. Tony shot him a hurt look. "Part of you did, Tony, admit it. And that was the part Steve picked up on. He took the cue and got out of your hair before things escalated any more, or escalated in front of Peter. As for taking your relationship public…I don't think he meant to reject you because of you, I think he's concerned about Captain America's image."

"So an image matters more than I do," Tony asked stonily.

"I can't speak for Steve, Tony, only interpret your ramblings," Bruce said with a small smile. "He'll be back. And besides, you'll see him in a couple of hours." At Tony's blank expression, Bruce rolled his eyes. "Meeting at the Triskelion at ten—you forgot, of course."

"No, it's just not on my schedule," Tony said stubbornly.

"Tony, you can't skip an Avengers meeting," Bruce said with a sigh.

"Of course I can, it's just not advised," Tony said cheerfully. "I'll make a note that this is an ill-advised action in the log."

"Tony—"

"Bruce," Tony said. He threw him a look. Tony Stark would never describe it as a pleading expression. He would say it was a…_diplomatic_ expression, but Bruce knew it for what it was, and he sighed and shook his head.

"When will you two learn that running away from your problems won't solve them?" Bruce asked. Tony laughed.

"Oh, hey there pot, so glad you called up to tell me I'm black," he said.

"It's not the _same_—forget it. I'll see you later, Tony, and try not to hurt yourself with your new toys," Bruce said. He left the workshop, but Tony wasn't watching. He was already absorbed, back to piecing together his puzzle.

_Sunday, 11:45pm_

_After the Green Goblin Attacks New York_

Tony walked in the door of his home in Brooklyn utterly exhausted. He tore off his motorcycle helmet as soon as he walked in the door and threw it on the ground. He could use a shower and a nice cup of Irish coffee. He walked up the stairs, feeling his joints creak as he went. He wouldn't say he was getting _too _old for this (never that), but his body might be beginning to disagree with him on that point. He walked down the hall and into his room and then stopped. His brows knit together. Something was off. He backed up and peered into Peter's room. Ah, that was it—there was no Peter.

"Peter?" Tony called through the house, but silence was his only answer. He went back down the stairs a little more quickly. "Pete, are you here?" He checked in the living room and the kitchen but no one was there. He checked the garage, but Peter wasn't there, either. Huh. Heading back upstairs, Tony whipped out his phone and pressed the speed dial. He heard it ring once, and then there was an answering sound—Peter's ringtone sounded from his room. Tony looked inside to find his phone on his bed. Tony felt a pit building in his stomach as he staved off panic. He wrote up a text.

Is peter w/you?

He sent the text to Steve and waited. He wandered around Peter's room for a minute. His laptop was sitting on the desk, the only clear spot amidst wrappers for Snickers bars and Reeses Cups. His camera hung on a bedpost, dangling by a thick shoulder strap. His skateboard leaned up against the end of the bed, next to his backpack, which was still full of books for homework. _No phone, no laptop, no camera, no skateboard, no homework._ Panic quickly welled up towards his throat, making it harder to breathe.

He isn't at home and his phone is in his room.

Tony stared at the phone, just waiting for a response, but none came. He played angry birds to distract himself for a bit, but the distraction did no good. Where was Peter?

I don't know where u r either pick up your damn phone

He couldn't just go yell for Steve and he'd suddenly appear. He didn't even know where he was staying, had no idea how to reach him—well, if worst came to worst he could always track the GPS in his phone, but what if his phone wasn't even with him? His phone wasn't exactly attached at his hip.

Goddamn it Steve

If only he was a NORMAL PERSON who kept his phone on him, then Tony wouldn't have to suffer this panic. Peter was probably just with Steve. Maybe Steve had told him where he was staying and Peter went to visit, or to ask why he left, or… But even as Tony tried to convince himself the words felt false.

PICK UP YOUR PHONE PETER IS MISSING

_Missing_. Again. This wasn't the first time recently that he'd gone off without warning, or longer than expected, but it was certainly the first time Tony had ever seen his son leave his phone unattended for longer than five minutes.

Just tell me he's with you.

But Steve wouldn't pick up. Tony was on his own. He'd have to hack the GPS on Steve's phone and—Tony's phone rang.

"Fucking finally!" Tony snarled as he picked it up. "You couldn't have called to tell me he was with you half an hour ago? I've been worr—"

"Tony, Peter's not with me," Steve replied urgently. "He didn't leave a note?" Tony's brain couldn't properly process the information. Peter wasn't with Steve. He really _was_ missing.

"No. He's not with you? Shit."

"Maybe he just stepped out for a walk," Steve said, but even he didn't sound convinced.

"I'm calling S.H.I.E.L.D."

"I'll meet you at HQ in ten minutes." Steve hung up the phone and Tony dialed Fury.

"What, Stark?" Fury's exasperated voice came through.

"My son is missing," Tony said. "Gone. There's no sign of him or where he went. He left his phone and everything else important to him." There was silence on the other side, a silence that went on for so long that Tony wanted to scream at him, _Didn't you hear what I said? My _son_ is missing. _DO SOMETHING. But before Tony could open his mouth Fury responded.

"Get down here ASAP. We're pulling up our surveillance footage now," Fury said.

Had Tony been in his right state of mind, he would have made some snarky comment about the cameras around his house and how _obvious_ they were no matter how subtle Fury thought they might be, but as it was Tony just hung up and ran for the garage. He fumbled with his helmet as he tried to get it on. He revved up his motorcycle and nearly ran into the garage door in his rush to get out. He must have broken at least fifty traffic laws on his way to the Triskelion, and he almost ran down six different bikers. By the time he arrived, SHIELD members were moving out of his way when he walked in, and he had no idea if that was because of the expression on his face or because they'd already heard what happened.

Tony burst into the conference room. Steve had somehow made it there before him—his hotel must be nearby, Tony realized, but then he shook away the thought. That didn't matter now. Nothing on Earth mattered except finding Peter and getting him home in one piece. Steve's sentiments must have mirrored Tony's own, because mere seconds after his entrance, Tony found himself engulfed in a hug from his newly estranged husband.

"We're going to find him," Steve said, determined. "We're going to find him, Tony, and he's going to be ok." Tony hugged him back briefly before pulling away.

"What's the latest on the situation?" he asked.

"Fury has surveillance on the house, as you well know, and they found this footage, here," Steve said, pointing at a flatscreen on the wall. It was a frozen image from a security camera of two men in FedEx uniforms putting Peter's unconscious form into a box barely larger than a mini-fridge. A hot flash of anger and a freezing flash of panic hit Tony one right after the other so that he had to sit down at the conference table.

His little boy looked so limp and helpless. His head lolled back on his shoulders, and his fingertips grazed the ground.

"Since I doubt a postal service would have reason to kidnap my son, who's _really_ behind this?" Tony asked.

"Isn't it obvious?" Steve asked bitterly. "The Goblin. He distracted us this morning so he could nab Peter while we were out."

_The Goblin_. Of course. It all made sense now, Tony thought. _Osborne._

"I'll eat my own hand if the Goblin isn't Norman Osborn," Tony snarled. All he could see was red. Norman Osborn had _kidnapped_ his son. Norman Osborn had kidnapped _Peter_. Norman Osborn was _so very dead_. Tony felt a big, warm hand settle on his shoulder.

"We don't know that, Tony…but it might be good to get a handle on Osborn's whereabouts just now," Steve said. Fury shook his head.

"Osborn is not our primary concern right now. We're tracking down this truck as best we can through security cameras, camera phones…whatever we've got. We're sending out agents to question your neighbors, see if they saw anything at all," Fury said.

"Well, how long is that going to take?" Steve asked.

"Potentially a couple of hours," Fury replied. Tony slammed his hands down on the table.

"Then I'm going to pay a visit to Oscorp," he said darkly.

"I'll come with you," Steve said, but Tony shook his head.

"You can't. You think they'll let Iron Man and Captain America stroll on up to Norman Osborn's head offices? No. It's too much of a threat. But they'll let Tony Stark in if he has a business proposal," Tony said. Steve nodded reluctantly, and Tony left the Triskelion just as quickly as he'd come.

Oscorp was not a pretty building in Tony Stark's opinion. The hexagonal windows were a nice touch, but the structure in general was too dark, and the building as a whole brought nothing to the table for the New York City skyline—it was just yet another big block. It was just too…industrial. And the inside, Tony noted, was just as cold. Everything seemed to be made of marble—shiny, sleek, hard marble. The brunette at the desk seemed to match the rest of the décor. Tony wasn't about to bother with her. He just opened the elevator and marched inside, the receptionist yelling curses after him. He hit the button for the top floor. For an important company with top-secret government contracts, the security seemed rather lax to Tony. He'd have to mention it to Rhodey.

The elevator dinged and Tony stepped out, faced with a sort of waiting room and yet another receptionist. A teenager in a private school uniform was slumped in one chair, backpack at his feet. His tie was loose, his shirt was partially un-tucked, and he had an annoyed expression on his face as he messed with something on his phone. _Rich kid but no Stark phone—yes, I'm definitely at Oscorp_, Tony thought. He put his hands down on the receptionist's desk and looked down at her. She looked up.

"Can I help you?" she asked uncertainly, obviously unused to unannounced visits.

"I'm Tony Stark. I'm looking for Norman Osborn," he said.

"That makes two of us," the kid chimed in. "I've been waiting for an hour."

"Do you have school on Sunday?" Tony asked.

"No. Detention. And my Dad just missed a parent-teacher conference," the kid said, and then Tony realized that he recognized him. It was Harry Osborn, Norman Osborn's one and only son. Tony hadn't realized that he was Peter's age.

"Mr. Osborn is currently in a meeting and cannot be disturbed. I've instructions not to let anyone in," the receptionist insisted.

"Not even his own kid? You've got to be kidding me," Tony said, rolling his eyes, but inside he felt his whole body tense up. There were a dozen business reasons why Osborn might need to have his office sealed from interruptions, but Tony doubted this had anything to do with business.

"Not even his son," the receptionist agreed.

"Oh. Well, gee, that's a shame," Tony said. The receptionist went back to her business at the computer, and Tony just walked right over to the door, turned the knob and opened it.

"Hey!" the receptionist protested.

"Seriously, in that entire hour you didn't think of just opening the door?" Tony asked Harry before waltzing inside like he owned the place. Perhaps one day he would. Perhaps he'd just buy out the sucker when Norman Osborn went to jail for kidnapping—what a sweet victory _that_ would be. Tony's eyes swept the office and, sure enough, No one was there. Harry had come up right behind him. "Looks like we're both still looking, kid." Tony could feel the rage building inside of him. This was as good as evidence to Tony.

"I'm calling security," the receptionist informed him.

"Really? You have security? I was beginning to wonder," Tony said. "But there's no need to trouble them. I'm on my way out."

_Natasha_

_Sunday, 8AM_

Natasha was beginning to think that the weekend Avengers meetings were cruel jokes, designed entirely to annoy her. She sat at the kitchen table in her cozy bathrobe, a cup of coffee in hand. She took a long drink of the coffee as Ana and Will zoomed around the table on rollerblades. It took her a moment to realize that, other than the rollerblades and underpants, and a fake Iron Man helmet on Will, they were completely naked. Ana carried a nerf bow, which she wasn't afraid to use. A dart stuck to Natasha's mug. She took another gulp of coffee as they sped past once more, giggling and screaming. She wasn't sure if she was looking forward to the days when they were teenagers and slept in until noon or dreading it for the countless other reasons why it would be terrible.

What had possessed her to ever have children, she would never quite know. Clint had just been oh-so-charming, filling her head with pretty visions of the idyllic family life that neither she nor Clint had ever really had. But their home life had ended up more circus than not. And it wasn't that she didn't love her children—Natasha loved them _fiercely_—it was just that sometimes (most of the time) they were exhausting.

Ana and Will came whizzing by, circling the table again, but this time Clint was running after them, brandishing two sets of clothes and telling them to stop. He sent her a pleading look. Natasha raised an eyebrow. Clint turned on the puppy dog eyes.

"It's your day to get them ready," Natasha said, taking a sip of her coffee. "The babysitter will be here in an hour."

"Carpets. I'm replacing everything in this house with carpet. No more tile, no linoleum, no more hardwood—just carpet. That should slow them down."

"Carpet catches on fire more easily," Natasha pointed out. "Rollerblades can be taken away." Clint sighed.

"True," he agreed. The kids came around for another pass and Clint caught them each in an arm and lifted them up. They squealed and giggled and protested. Natasha stood up and removed the rollerblades from their feet.

"No running away from Daddy," Natasha said sternly. "No rollerblading in the house. No roller_skating_ in the house. No wheels of any kind will be permitted, is that understood?"

"Yes," they said in unison. They did almost everything in unison. Natasha had no idea how they coordinated their efforts.

"Ok, time to put clothes on. Clothes are good. We _like_ clothes," Clint said, hauling them bodily upstairs while they laughed. Clint cracked a small smile. Natasha didn't smile until they were out of sight—they couldn't, of course, know that she found the whole situation hysterical. It might encourage them to do it again, which might cost them yet another babysitter. She looked at her watch—_8:30_. Of course, they wouldn't run through half as many babysitters if Fury didn't insist upon having the Avengers meet at least once a month on a Sunday. During the week, the twins were at school, but weekends were much more difficult to manage. Natasha finished her coffee and headed up the stairs. As she changed into her SHIELD uniform she could hear shouts and giggles from the twins' bedroom, with the occasional, narrowly avoided curse word from Clint.

"Fu—dge!" Natasha just grinned. As soon as she was ready she opened the door to their bedroom. Clothes were strewn all over the floor. Ana, now dressed in just jeans, still had her toy bow, which she was using to shoot darts at her brother. Will, to his credit, easily blocked her with his replica Captain America shield. Clint couldn't seem to decide which one to wrangle and shove into a t-shirt first.

"Will, Ana, stop _this instant_ or—or no gymnastics class for the next three weeks _or_ archery practice, and the only toys you'll have the privilege of using will be imaginary ones," Clint finally snapped. Ana slowly put down the bow, and Will followed suit with the shield. "I've had it. You're getting dressed, and you will behave well for the babysitter today or my threat still stands, is that understood?"

"Yes," they both mumbled. Will grabbed some jeans off the floor, and Ana followed suit with a shirt.

"Good. Clean up this mess before you come downstairs for breakfast," Clint said sternly before leaving the room. Natasha followed.

"Smooth," Natasha said.

"Well, what was I supposed to do?" Clint asked irritably.

"Not let them get out of hand in the first place," Natasha said, matter-of-fact.

"Easy for you to say—they _listen_ to _you_," Clint said.

"Because they know I won't tolerate that behavior at all," Natasha replied. "If we're playing good cop, bad cop, I'm the bad cop you're push-over-cop."

"I am _not_."

"You _are_," Natasha insisted.

"Well excuse me for having a paternal bone in my body," Clint said.

"Oh, so I don't have a maternal bone?"

"I didn't say that."

"You didn't have to," Natasha said, a little annoyed as well now. "Paternal does not have to equate to 'push-over'. If you take a firmer hand, they'll still love you, Clint." Natasha pushed past her annoyance and kissed her husband on the cheek. Better that than to start off the day badly. Natasha could see the tension Clint had been holding in his shoulders dissolve.

"I know," he sighed. "So, what's on the agenda for the meeting today?"

"I've told Fury that we need to have a discussion about Steve and Tony," Natasha said. Clint looked at her.

"Is the situation really that serious?"

"I believe so," Natasha said quietly. "Bruce texted me last night." She handed her husband her phone.

BRUCE

Peter came to see me earlier. Steve and Tony having serious problems. Could be an issue.

"And you saw them when we fought that armored freak," Natasha said. "Stark could have gotten us all killed. He's always been a bit of a rogue, and without Steve to temper him he brings that wildcard to the team."

"No need to tell me that," Clint said with a snort. "But they've had spats before. They'll get over it."

"I'm not so certain," Natasha said cautiously. She would feel better once she'd had a chance to see them together again.

"Such cynicism on a Sunday morning isn't healthy," Clint said. "Come on, let's eat breakfast."

_12:30 PM_

Nothing had been discussed at the meeting that needed to be discussed, Natasha still felt disgusting despite having taken repeated showers at the Triskelion, and now she was tired and grumpy and frankly just wanted to get home and relax on the couch with Clint's arms around her and a movie on the television. She walked beside Clint as they made their way out to their car in the parking garage. Natasha felt her phone ring and she sighed—apparently none of that was destined to be.

"What?" Natasha demanded.

"Peter Parker has gone missing," Fury told her. Natasha hung up the phone and started running to the car.

"What is it?" Clint asked. "Tasha, what's going on?"

"Peter's been kidnapped," Natasha said, wrenching open the door to the car and jumping in. Clint pitched himself into the driver's seat and started the car before the door was even fully shut. Natasha felt her phone ring again, but she didn't care what Fury wanted. Her heart was in her throat as Clint sped down the street as fast as he could.

When they reached their house, Natasha jumped out of the car before it was even in park and rushed inside.

"Ana?" she called. "Will?" She heard giggles from the living room and went inside.

"Ms. Romanoff, you're home early—someone called and said you wouldn't be back until late," said Gwen, a sweet, seventeen-year-old girl who had babysat for them four whole times. She was playing some kind of board game with Ana and Will. But as sweet as she was, Natasha was hardly listening. She got on her knees and enveloped her children in a hug. Natasha heard Clint's sigh of relief as he came in behind her.

"Mom are you ok?" Ana asked tentatively.

"I'm fine—thank God you're fine," Natasha said. She kissed Ana's forehead, and then Will's before letting them go.

"Is everything ok, Ms. Romanoff, Mr. Barton?" Gwen asked. "I can't stay until late, but I can call my friend—"

"That won't be necessary, Gwen," Clint said. "We're sorry to be a little late as it is, I know you were only meant to stay until noon."

"Oh, it's not a problem, they're such sweethearts," Gwen said with a bright smile. Natasha didn't detect a lie, but she couldn't believe Gwen either.

"Well that's…new," Clint said, eyeing the children suspiciously. Clint went into the kitchen to get an envelope, which he handed to Gwen. "Thank you for staying late."

"You're welcome. I hope you all have a lovely Sunday!" Gwen said optimistically. They said their goodbyes and Gwen left. Natasha picked up Ana, and Clint grabbed Will. Natasha wasn't quite sure that _lovely_ fit the bill so much as _godawful_, but without even having to communicate it, Natasha and Clint took the kids to the car and headed to the Triskelion. Neither of them were letting those kids out of their sight.

By the time they arrived at HQ, everyone was already running around like crazy. Well, everyone except Steve Rogers, who sat at a table, staring ahead into empty air. Slowly, quietly, she slid into the seat next to him and just waited. The minutes stretched out. Natasha watched people go by through the glass windows of the conference room. But finally a voice broke the silence.

"They told me that just sitting here would be the best way I could help Peter. Just waiting. So I'm sitting. I'm waiting," Steve said. "Tony's doing…something. He's good with technology."

"You want to do something," Natasha stated.

"Wouldn't you?" Steve asked.

"I'd be tearing my hair out by now if I were you," Natasha admitted. Which wasn't true. She'd probably have killed at least three people, but she wouldn't touch her hair.

"He fought, Tasha," Steve said quietly. "The security footage—he fought them off. Used one of _your_ signature moves. But one of them came up from behind and got him with a cloth—chloroform, Fury thinks." _Peter? Used one of _my _moves?_ Natasha doubted it. Peter was a sweet kid, and just as genius as his Dad, but in the physical department he gained nothing from Steve. She'd tried to teach him martial arts as a kid, but he was always too slow, too clumsy, and just plain not strong enough. But Natasha didn't say any of those things.

"He's a tough kid," Natasha lied. Peter was emotionally tough. And she had no doubt that he knew how to take a beating. But he wasn't physically tough by anyone's definition. "We'll find him, Steve."

"Will we?" Steve asked. "What if—what if we _do_ find him, but—what if we're too late, Tasha?" Natasha didn't have to ask what he meant.

"We won't be. Because we _can't_ be," Natasha said firmly. She put her hand over his.

"Do you remember when Peter got shot?" Steve asked. Natasha nodded. It was difficult to forget.

"We weren't there then. We didn't call the ambulance. We didn't save him. Someone else did. If it had been left to us, it would have been too late. And it almost was," Steve said. Natasha didn't know what to say to that, so she said nothing.

Now came the hard part. Now came the waiting.

_Steve_

_5:02 PM_

Steve Rogers was at his wit's end. For almost four hours he had been waiting while people more qualified or more knowledgeable tried their best to find his son. And he'd just been sitting.

Different people had been sitting with him. Natasha sat with him for a while, and then Clint took over. Clint left and Bruce came along. Bruce left and Thor replaced him, talking where the other three had been silent. He swore they would get Peter back, swore that his captors would pay, swore that vengeance would be achieved and all the might of the Avengers would rain down upon them. But the first bit was all that Steve cared about.

Tony had come in at some point, raging against Norman Osborne, swearing in many creative ways just exactly how he'd kill him when he got the chance, but Steve hadn't really been listening. He'd just grabbed Tony's hand and held it. And Tony quieted and took a seat. At some point he'd left, but Steve didn't know when.

Steve was all for patience. He was all for strategizing and coming up with a plan of attack. But Steve was also a man of action, and this waiting, this uncertainty, it was killing him slowly. He'd suited up earlier and hadn't changed out. He was like a cat ready to pounce—only his prey didn't seem like it was turning up. And it was making him very, very nervous. There were too many 'what-if' scenarios running through his mind. And it reminded him of the time when Bucky was being held captive, and reminded him of the other time Peter had gotten kidnapped as a little boy. And it made the bottom of his stomach drop out. Captain America might never show fear—but Steve Rogers sure as hell _felt_ it.

"We've got a potential location!" Maria Hill shouted into the conference room. "An old slaughterhouse on 203 and 6th—" Steve rushed past her, Thor on his heels.

"We shall fly, brother," Thor said as they made their way to the nearest exit.

"Damn straight we'll fly," Steve said. He pushed a button on his comm. "Avengers assemble at 203 and 6th. Current status unknown, potential hostage situation—approach with caution." He would not have anyone fuck this up. Not even Tony. _Especially_ not Tony. They burst through the doors and Thor grabbed his side, swinging his hammer through the air. He couldn't fly as easily as Tony could, but he managed just fine.

"We're almost there, brother-in-arms!" Thor called out over the wind just a few minutes later. Steve's heart was in his throat. What would they find once they reached the slaughterhouse? Iron Man flew next to them—he could go faster, but it was better to attack as a team. It was bad enough that Clint and Natasha and Bruce would have to travel by ground.

"Let's split up—you attack from the North, we'll attack from the South," Cap said.

"Roger that, Rogers," Tony said, before veering to the left. Thor went to the right. The building slowly came into sight, and then quicker. And all of a sudden Cap felt his heart stop and his vision momentarily lose focus. Acrid black smoke billowed from an open window and an open door. _No_, Steve thought. If Peter wasn't already out…Steve didn't want to think about it. The roof had yet to collapse, but Cap thought it was only a matter of time. By the open window two small figures stood—no, not stood. They were in the air. It was the green goblin, his costume glinting from the naked flames and the setting sun. His hands were around the throat of someone in a red and blue suit with black webs—Spider-Man.

""Put the vigilante _down_, Goblin," Steve said, finding his voice. He sounded much more threatening than he felt. The Goblin turned his ugly head to him, and the Spider-Man stuck out his hand, spraying him in the face with webbing. The Goblin yelled and momentarily relaxed his grip on the vigilante. A moment was all Spider-Man needed—he kicked Goblin in the chest and did a back flip off the glider and onto the roof. The Goblin nearly fell off his glider at the kick, and he flew around erratically as he tried to tear the web off the eyes of his armor. Iron Man flew in to the scene. _Go get him, Tony_, Steve thought. The Goblin finally managed to rip off the web, balancing himself on the glider and zooming away from Iron Man, who was quickly closing in.

"You're on my _list_, Spiderman!" the Goblin shouted. He flew away, with Iron Man chasing after.

"To the roof, Thor!" Steve commanded. Thor obediently flew to the roof, landing next to Spider-Man. Steve went rushing towards the masked vigilante.

"Did you see anything? Did you see a teenage boy? His name is Peter, did you save him?" Steve asked anxiously. After a moment, Spider-Man nodded. Steve was a strong man, but at the admission, he nearly wept. Peter was out. He wasn't in the burning building.

"Oh, thank God—where is he?" Steve asked. Spider-Man pointed towards the city. "He…went back home?" Spider-Man nodded. "Not much of a talker, are you?" Spider-Man just shrugged. Captain America placed a hand on his shoulder. "Well, thank you for your help. You just saved my son's life. That's not something that I will ever forget. We need to talk sometime—" Captain America looked Spiderman up and down for a second; if he wasn't talking now, he probably wasn't going to later. "—or, I'll talk, you nod, but I have a son to find at the moment." Spider-Man nodded one last time, and Thor grabbed him, taking him off the roof.

"Straight to Brooklyn if you don't mind, Thor," Steve said anxiously.

"For you, anything, brother," Thor said earnestly, and he sped off through the city skyline towards his Steve's little neighborhood.

Steve didn't care about secrecy anymore. Thor dropped him just outside his house.

"Thanks Thor!" Steve called out as he ran towards the door, ripping off his mask.

"Call on me when you have a chance and let me know that Peter's ok!" Thor called out. Steve nodded and opened the front door as Thor flew off again.

And there was Peter, right in front of him, looking haggard and shaken, but generally ok. And Steve couldn't believe it. He gathered his son into his arms and held him tightly. He never wanted to let him go.

[["Ow, Pops, ow—" Steve backed of quickly and looked his son up and down.

"You're injured? They hurt you? The _bastards_, I'll—"

"It's just bruising, I think, but you can feel free to still do…whatever it is you were about to say that I imagine was horrific because they _totally_ deserve it," Peter said. Steve could see him wince slightly. Steve's rage flared. He'd get those bastards. "Where's Dad?"

"Here in seconds, I expect," Pops said. On the way back he'd contacted Tony over the comm. system to let him know that Peter was on his way home. He just looked at Peter. "I thought we might lose you today."

"Well, you _did_ lose me, and _I_ lost me, but you _found _me and that's the important bit," Peter said cheekily, but Steve was not in the mood for jokes. He didn't even crack a smile, and the grin faded from Peter's face.

"Someone knows who you are, Peter," Steve said. "The game changes from here on out." Steve started walking upstairs, and he grabbed Peter's elbow, gently forcing him to come along.

"What are you doing?" Peter asked, bewildered.

"Packing. Packing your stuff," Steve said. "We can't stay here." The location had been compromised. Brooklyn was no longer safe. But any sadness or nostalgia he felt about that, about leaving his home after so many years, after living in Brooklyn his entire life was squashed by the knowledge that it wasn't safe for Peter anymore. Nothing mattered but his safety.

"Oh," Peter said. Steve was grateful that he didn't argue. "Are we packing Dad's stuff, too?"

"He will, when he gets here." Steve knew what Peter was really asking, but even Steve didn't know the answer to that unspoken question.

"Well this will be an easy packing job then," Peter said as they entered his room, "seeing as you're already packed." Peter looked Steve in the eye, and Steve was ashamed to admit that he had to look away.

"Peter—"

"PETER? STEVE?" Tony shouted from downstairs.

"Up here, Tony," Steve shouted back, a little relieved. They heard thumping as Tony ran up the stairs, and seconds later Peter had another pair of arms cutting off his oxygen supply.

"Dad—" Peter started, but Steve was already peeling Tony off.

"Bruising," Steve explained. Tony's face darkened, and Steve knew the feeling, but he shook his head."Later, Tony. Now, packing."

"Packing?" Tony asked, and Steve felt a lump in his throat as he recognized the slight note of panic in his husband's voice.

"Yeah, you too. Go pack things for the night—we're staying at the Tower," Steve said firmly. He dragged a suitcase out of Peter's closet.

"Uh, you know, I can pack on my own, it's really fine—how long should I pack for?" Peter asked.

"Indefinitely," Steve replied. Peter waited a moment and then just stared at him.

"Are you seriously going to watch me pack?"

"Yes."

"_No_, Pops, I'll be fine."

"You were just _kidnapped_. _Again_!"

"_Pops_."

"I'm standing outside the door, then," Steve said firmly. He stood outside. Peter shut the door.

Peter groaned. Steve came bursting right back through the door.

"What? What is it? Are you ok?"

"What?" Peter asked. "Oh…I'm fine…it's just…I had a date." Steve gave him a pitying look. He knew the feeling. He clapped his son on the back gently.

"I'm sure you can reschedule," Steve said. "I'll be outside." Steve left his room and closed the door behind him. Tony was waiting when he did.

"Steve—" Tony started but Steve shook his head again.

"We have a lot to talk about, but not now. Right now you should just pack. This location has been compromised, we need to move as quickly as possible," Steve said. Tony opened his mouth to protest, then shut it. He sighed and nodded once, heading to their bedroom. In a few days, Steve thought, Tony would sweep professional movers through their home, packing everything up and moving it to—to where? The Tower? That had never been their home. For one thing, JARVIS gave Steve the heebie jeebies. For another thing, it was _all_ Tony. There was none of Steve in the penthouse. Which was why when they ended up there, Steve already felt uncomfortably tense.

This was Tony _before_. This was Tony before they started dating, Tony before they got married, Tony after he cheated on Steve. This was a place Steve had never stayed for more than a week at a time. JARVIS flipped on the lights as soon as they walked in.

"Welcome home, Masters Stark and Rogers," JARVIS spoke. It was midnight, and they were all exhausted. Peter just went straight to his room without another word. Steve felt like following suit, but he and Tony had too much to talk about. Steve headed to the kitchen and Tony wordlessly followed. Steve started up the coffee maker. This was probably going to be an all-nighter.

"So," Tony said.

"So," Steve replied.

"Peter needs to change schools," Tony said. "Midtown won't be safe for him anymore."

"Agreed. I was thinking something private, not another public school," Steve said.

"Hawthorne Academy would suit," Tony said. He looked at the coffee machine. "God, that's going to take too long. I'm calling my assistant—"

"Oh, don't bother Pepper—"

"Not Pepper, that junior assistant…Marianne or something else from Gilligan's Island. That's how I remember, Gilligan girl. Maybe it's Ginger. Hell I don't know, but I know she's on call and there's a 24-hour Starbucks around here somewhere," Tony said. He started dialing his phone but Steve snatched it away.

"By the time she gets here the coffee will be ready," Steve said. "Why Hawthorne? Isn't that—"

"For parents with more money than sense and kids without the test scores to get in anywhere else? Yes," Tony said. "But you know who goes there? Harry Osborn. And Norman won't dare attack the school his own son attends. Besides, there's tons of extra security, secrecy agreements…and I was thinking we might as well use Peter's real name."

"Peter Stark?" Steve thought for a moment. "It's not a bad idea. Peter might like the extra freedom. Might like the acknowledgement of being your son, even if he'd never _admit_ he resents not having it." Tony nodded, staring at the coffee maker.

"We'll make it Irish when it's ready," Steve promised. He pulled out a chair at the kitchen table and sat down heavily. Even if he couldn't get drunk, he was feeling the need for a little something extra in his coffee, too.

They were both silent for a minute. They were silent until the coffee was ready, and as Steve poured he made good on his promise. And it wasn't until after they'd both had a cup each and poured another that they resumed the conversation that neither one of them wanted to have.

"You moved out," Tony said. That was Tony all over, just getting straight to the point.

"I did," Steve replied. "But only for a couple of days. Only for one day, really…"

"So you're staying here?" Tony questioned.

"For tonight. If you'll have me," Steve clarified. The look on Tony's face made Steve feel horribly guilty. He looked so sad.

"Steve—God, of _course_ you can fucking stay here, you're my _husband_ this is as much your house—_Jesus_, Steve," Tony said, not properly able to express himself. Steve just shifted uncomfortably. Tony just looked at him. "But nothing's changed, has it?"

"Well—no," Steve said. And he hated himself for that.

"Bruce told me not to take it personally. He said it was because you were concerned about Captain America's image," Tony said, watching him carefully. Steve felt relieved.

"Yes, exactly," he said.

"So Captain America's image matters more than honesty, matters more than your husband, more than your family," Tony asked stonily. Steve felt like he should be backpedaling, but he couldn't.

"Doesn't it? Tony, Captain America represents the _Avengers_. Captain America holds the whole image together, makes it a good thing…and what happens when that image is tarnished? What happens when America finds out that their hero has been _lying_ to them for nearly twenty years?" Steve asked, but even as he said it he knew it was the wrong thing to say, even if it had to be said. "Tony, we protect the world. What would happen if our unit got dissolved?"

"Jesus, I don't know, maybe someone else might take up the mantle? You know, everybody says _I'm _self-absorbed, but you seem to think the world will stop turning without you—_newsflash_, Rogers, you were frozen for seventy years and it did just fine then!" Tony shouted. "Your job is more important to you than your family, _that's_ what it comes down to."

"You _know_ it's not that simple—"

"It looks pretty fucking simple from where I'm standing," Tony said.

"You're asking me to say my family is more important than the safety of the _planet_, Tony, and don't pretend you're not," Steve said.

"And it's not?" Tony asked.

"We won't have a planet to _live _on if it's not, of course it is Tony! That's _sacrifice_," Steve said.

"You are so self-righteous it's unbelievable," Tony said. He finished the last of his coffee. "If you think that Peter and I are _tarnish_ to Captain fucking America's precious _image_—"

"Tony—"

"Then stay the night. But then get the fuck out of my house and away from my son," Tony said, looking Steve right in the eyes. Steve thought for a moment that he could actually feel himself being punched, but, of course it felt worse than any physical blow Tony could have delivered. If Steve Rogers had been a lesser man, he might have just broken down into tears then. But he was Steve Rogers, he was Captain America, and that simply wasn't done.

"He's my son too, Tony," Steve said quietly. "You don't know what you're asking."

"I know damn well what I'm asking. But I don't think you know what you're giving up," Tony said. But there was no pleading in those eyes. There was just hard resolve. _That's where you're wrong_, Steve thought as he felt his heart constrict. It was getting harder to breathe, but he wasn't about to break in front of Tony. Not now.

"I'll be gone by tomorrow afternoon," Steve said. With that he headed out the door. He'd sleep in the lab tonight. Well away from Tony—somewhere where he couldn't see Steve fall to pieces.


	5. Chapter 5

Steve Rogers had not in all of his 47 years felt so conflicted. Well, it was 116 years if he counted his time on the ice, which he never did. Since he hadn't actually experienced anything—or aged—he thought it was hardly fair.

It had been five days since he'd seen Peter, five days since he'd spoken to him or texted him or anything. It had been five days since he saw the hurt and disgust on his husband's face, five days since he told him to stay away from _his _son, five days since Steve's world finally well and truly ripped apart.

But it had been over eighteen years since Steve Rogers had last felt this alone, and twenty-two years since he had felt this completely out of place, this completely lost. But it made sense, he supposed. Twenty-two years ago (well, twenty-two years for him, anyway) he had lost everyone and everything he ever cared about, and on Sunday he'd basically gone and thrown them away.

Steve meant what he'd said. Steve wasn't going to take it back. Steve spoke how he felt. But what if Tony had been right? What if the Avengers weren't as important as he thought they were? What if the X-Men could handle everything just fine? Or what if a new group would pop up, free from the potential public scandal that was just as capable of doing their job?

It didn't sit well with Steve. If his job wasn't really that important, why was he doing it? All the lives he'd saved, all the villains they'd stopped…did it matter? Had any of it mattered? Or was he actually as replaceable as a cog in watch?

Steve just kept running on the treadmill, trying not to think. For once, he ran with music blasting in his ears, swing music that he'd put on his StarkPhone when he'd first gotten it. He preferred to run outside, not on a treadmill, and he preferred to run in silence rather than with music playing, but it was _cold _out (Steve _hated_ the cold), and Steve wanted to drown out his thoughts.

Unfortunately the music was doing nothing for him. _Maybe something with lyrics_, he thought. He pressed shuffle, and then winced. Of course, the first song to pop up was Black Sabbath's _Paranoid_, one of Tony's favorite songs. Steve, personally, was not a fan, so of course Tony had one day commandeered his StarkPhone and put on every last song Black Sabbath had ever made and then proceeded to put on even more of his favorite bands for Steve's "education".

Of course, Steve wasn't a techno-idiot, he could take them off if he wanted to, but every time he'd gone to do it, he'd think of Tony, give a long suffering sigh, and leave them on. But now he kind of wished he had. He turned off the phone and removed the buds from his ears, just as he received a hard, startling slap on the back.

"Brother-in-arms!" Thor boomed, "I have not seen you in this gym for many moons!"

"Months, Thor. Months," Steve tried to correct the Asgardian 'God', but Thor never paid attention to his corrections, or his insistences that he be called 'Steve' and not 'Brother-in-Arms', or his advice that it probably wasn't a good idea to eat two boxes of Pop-Tarts in one sitting. Sometimes Steve figured that Thor was thick on purpose.

"Indeed! Many moons!" Thor replied. "It is good to see you here again! Would you care for a—"

"Look, Thor, I really don't want to race right now," Steve said. He pressed a few buttons on the treadmill, slowing it until it stopped. "I think I'm done working out for the day, anyhow." Steve hopped off the treadmill and put a towel around his neck. He gathered up his stuff, acutely aware that Thor was watching his every move.

"What troubles you, Captain?" Thor asked seriously, the intensity of his gaze not something Steve was used to on the jolly 'God'.

"Life," Steve said with a weary smile. He threw his duffel over his shoulder and headed for the door, but stopped when a large hand clamped down on his shoulder.

"Steven, what is wrong?" Thor asked earnestly. There wasn't one hint of insincerity in those big blue eyes of his. But then, Steve had never known the Asgardian to be insincere or even dishonest. He always got uncomfortable when required to give a little 'white lie', and he'd even nearly ruined Bruce's surprise birthday party one year because he had a horrible poker face. Needless to say, he was also terrible at _actual _poker.

"I'm sure you know Tony and I are—" Steve choked on the word _separated_, because it sounded so _final,_ so he chose another phrase, "—having trouble right now."

"I have been informed," Thor confirmed. "Marriage is sometimes a difficult thing." Steve nodded his agreement.

"I just—I'm—We really—I—I found an apartment," Steve eventually concluded, unable to finish any of his other lines of thought. But he knew that would say everything to Thor.

"Oh, Steven," Thor said softly. "You cannot know how much this news grieves me. And I cannot comprehend how much this must grieve _you_."

"It's—yes. But. I just. It's my fault, and I know it is, but I can't change it. And on top of that…Tony…he—he told me to stay away from his son," Steve admitted, barely getting the words past the lump in his throat. "And even though he's my son, too, I don't—I can't _blame _him for it, not entirely, and I feel like…to some degree, I have to respect his wishes. I haven't talked to Peter all week. And it's killing me."

"Have you harmed Peter?" Thor asked. Steve's eyes widened in shock.

"No! God, do I—do you think I'd do something like that?"

"Has a Midgardian court of law stated that you have no visitation rights?"

"We're not divorced, Thor—"

"Has Peter said that he does not wish to see you?"

"No, of course not—"

"Then Tony has no right to forbid you access to him," Thor concluded firmly. "He is your son, too, Steve, just not by blood. My brother Loki is no less my brother for his adoption, no matter what he might say." Thor thumped him on the shoulder once more and let go. "Call your son, Captain. I am certain he wishes for you as you wish for him."

"You might be right, Thor," Steve said, but he still felt conflicted. Thor just smiled.

"I know that I am right," Thor spoke. "And I know that if anyone—even Jane—tried to keep me from my child without _reason_ I wouldn't allow it."

"Thor, you don't have kids," Steve said pointedly. Thor just smiled. "Is—is Jane pregnant? Thor, that's fantastic! Congratulations!"

"Thank you, Brother-in-Arms," Thor said. "We anxiously await the little one's arrival, and we will celebrate heartily when he or she is brought forth into Midgard!"

"We all will, Thor," Steve agreed with a smile, heading for the door. "And thanks for the advice, uh, Brother-in-Arms."

"Thor," Thor said. Steve just stared at him. Thor smiled, a mad little glint in his eyes. Steve turned around and left through the door, shaking his head. Sometimes he wasn't so sure Loki was adopted. Steve headed up to his office (yes, he actually had an office, though he didn't use it much) to fill out paperwork. He'd take Thor's suggestion into consideration, but he still wasn't certain he was right. After all, Tony did have a _reason_, even if Steve thought it wasn't a very _good_ one. But at any rate, there wasn't anything better for numbing the brain than paperwork, so that was what Steve set out to do.

Several hours and a massive headache later, Steve emerged from his office in a desperate search for aspirin, or ibuprofen, or acetaminophen or _something_ to stop the pounding in his head. Steve absolutely hated tension headaches—one thing not even the super soldier serum could stop. He wandered down to medical, turning the corner with two fingers pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Hey, Kathy, could I get some asp—" But Kathy wasn't at the reception desk. In fact, it looked like all of medical was deserted. He wandered further in—this couldn't be right, medical was _never_ empty. He heard the faint sound of a television playing—the news, Steve thought it was. He headed in that direction and happened upon the medical lounge, where all the staff and many patients were huddled beneath the TV.

"—rescue workers have confirmed that the bomb destroyed the top two floors of Oscorp, but the rest of the building was unaffected. Needless to say all employees have been evacuated. It is unclear at the moment how many lives the attack took, but it has been confirmed that a board meeting was scheduled to take place this evening when the bomb went off. Workers in the building have estimated that the death toll could as high as fifty. So much is still unclear about what happened here at Oscorp this evening, but rescue workers have already confirmed that this was no accident. We'll be updating on this situation as we receive information. Back to you, Bob."

"But…what about Eve?" Steve asked, not even really aware that he'd spoken aloud. And then one of the nurses left the room quickly and Steve felt bad. His headache was even worse, but he could worry about that later. He ran up to the head offices to talk to Fury—weren't the Avengers going to do something about this?

"There's nothing we _can_ do, Cap," Fury said. "Well, there's nothing _you_ can do, or any of the other Avengers. But I have agents trying to work out who's dead and who's alive."

"This was a pointed attack, wasn't it?" Cap asked, but it wasn't really a question. Fury stared at him hard.

"_You_ tell _me_."

"What do you mean?" Steve asked, confused. "If I had to guess, I'd say it was something with a specific aim, specific people in mind—if they were just looking for a body count, I have no doubt that whole building would be on the ground."

"Specific people—or a specific person," Fury said, a hard edge to his voice.

"I really don't get what you're hinting at, Fury," Steve said, genuinely baffled.

"Who's been keeping checks on that husband of yours this week?" Fury asked. And then it dawned on Steve what Fury was hinting at. Steve felt his blood run cold—but not with doubt or fear, but with, well, _fury_.

"That's not a road you even want to start down, Nick," Steve said dangerously. "I'll pretend I didn't just hear you imply that my _husband _is a _terrorist_ aiming to _murder Norman Osborne_."

"You said it, not me," Fury said, putting two hands up and watching Steve carefully.

"You want to back off now, Nick," Steve said quietly. "I thought you knew Tony better than this."

"I know Tony Stark isn't one to back off when his family is threatened," Fury said, a bit more lightly.

"And _I_ know that Tony isn't a _murderer_. He would never take innocent lives, would never do something that put innocent lives in _danger_, even," Steve said. "And if you think I'm going to let you _talk about him like that_—"

"Oh, I'm glad you won't," Fury said, getting up from his desk. "I just wanted to make _sure_ that you wouldn't, despite everything I hear is going on with you two." Steve blinked.

"I—sir?"

"Just making sure you still trust your teammate, Rogers," Fury explained. "Had to push your buttons a bit to make sure there were still buttons to push." Fury brushed past him, leaving the office. Steve followed behind, glaring at his back.

"Sometimes I hate working for you, sir," Steve said.

"And yet you're still here," Fury answered. "I called Tony fifteen minutes ago, he's on his way here, along with everyone else. There's not much you all can do at the moment, but I want you all ready to suit up at a moment's notice. If we find survivors, either in that wreckage or who were lucky enough not to show up for work that day—"

"You want to make sure we get to them before someone else does," Steve finished for him, and Fury nodded. "Then we will. We all will. Don't worry about the team, Fury. I won't let this affect us." Fury looked at him for a long moment, and then nodded.

"As you will, soldier," Fury said.

Tony didn't want to leave his workshop. Tony didn't want to leave his workshop for anything. He'd buried himself in his latest project and buried was where he felt like staying. And frankly, he was Tony fucking Stark so who was going to drag him away?

But he wasn't just Tony Stark, he was also Iron Man, and Fury had (verbally) dragged him out of his workshop to wait around on a _potential _mission, which rather pissed him off, because now he was stuck waiting at the Triskelion in a conference room with his fellow Avengers, which, of course, included Captain America.

He'd tried not to think of Captain America as Steve. Because they _weren't_ exactly the same person, and this degree of separation had always served them in the past. But now Tony couldn't look at the Captain and even _see_ Steve—because Steve had gone and disappeared and the Captain had wholly replaced him. It was the _Captain_ who would put family before Avenging, and it was the Captain Steve had been swallowed by whole. And it made Tony (perhaps irrationally) angry. It made him furious with the Captain, like if he poked and prodded and made enough snarky comments the Captain would disappear and Steve would come back. And so he did all of those things. Repeatedly. But the Captain just responded as the Captain always did to Tony's antics—with scorn and annoyance, where Steve would respond with rolled eyes and a laugh. He wanted _Steve _back, desperately. But he wanted Steve without the Captain, and therein laid the problem. Because no matter how much Tony thought of them separately, they were one and the same.

The other Avengers made uncomfortable jokes to lighten the mood. Thor ordered pizza for everyone, and he ate an entire pepperoni pizza by himself and probably had room left over. The Captain didn't touch the food, so Tony did just to spite him. All in all, Tony thought they were doing a good job of pointedly ignoring any potentially serious conversation starters and might escape this faux-mission without hurting one another further, especially when Fury told them all to head to bed, that he'd call when they were needed.

Tony was wrong.

They were walking to the scant living quarters in the Triskelion, and Tony could see that now the Captain had disappeared. It was Steve who tensed as they walked. Tony knew he never liked having to stay at the Triskelion. This break in character probably wouldn't have been a problem for either of them, had it not been for the fact that their assigned rooms were down the same hall. They'd used to, of course, have a single assigned room, and someone in SHIELD had been smart enough to reassign them at some point in the last week or so. Unfortunately they hadn't been smart enough to put them on opposite sides of the triskelion, so they ended up walking to their rooms alone together.

Without the other Avengers to act as a buffer for conversation, and without the Captain there to hold his tongue, Steve opened his mouth.

"How's Peter?" Steve asked.

"Why don't you just ask him?" Tony asked, a bit more bitingly than was perhaps necessary.

"You told me to stay away from _your_ son. I figured I'd respect that. At least for a while," Steve said. "How's he doing, Tony?"

Tony didn't know what shocked him more, the realization that Steve had really taken that angry comment to heart or that Tony _didn't know the answer_ to Steve's question.

When had he even last seen Peter?

Was it yesterday? He went to get pizza and Peter was around. He said hi, didn't he?

But he hadn't seen him today, had he? No, he definitely hadn't seen him today. And he hadn't really spoken to him at all since…Monday? He hadn't given much thought to Peter, lately. And God, didn't that speak _volumes_.

"I didn't—You told me off, I thought you knew I was out of line. You're a good father, Steve, and Peter loves you. This is hard enough for him without me cutting him off from you," Tony said.

"Is he…is he taking this badly?" Steve asked quietly.

"Is there another way to take it?" Tony asked, almost offended. Was there an easy way to take separation? Did Steve just shrug all of this off? But of course, one look in his eyes and Tony knew that couldn't be true.

"I…I just meant, is he acting like himself or is he…withdrawn or, I don't know, acting out or anything? I mean, he did punch a kid last week, I wouldn't really be surprised," Steve said.

"No, he's not, he's fine," Tony lied. He had no idea, but like hell was he admitting his terrible parenting to Captain Perfect.

"Oh. Ok. Good," Steve said. Tony opened the door to his room.

"Are we done here, Captain?" Tony asked.

"Yeah, I think we—" Steve started, and then he abruptly stopped, staring at the door handle. Wait, no—Tony realized a little belatedly that Steve was staring at his hand, his wedding-ring-free hand. Steve looked at Tony. Tony just stared back, uncertain of what to say, or do. "Yeah, Tony. I think we're done." And as the weight of those words settled over them, Steve went inside his own room and shut the door.

It hadn't escaped Tony's notice that Steve subtly slipped off his own ring as he did so.

Tony slammed his own door shut.

"So do we have any suspects yet?" the Captain asked in the conference room the next day. They'd all convened at eight AM sharp, for which Tony had required copious amounts of Starbucks be brought in (which, of course, he'd demanded from a terrified intern) and even then he was wishing he had some whiskey to make it all Irish. So far, nothing of interest had happened, and the whole day had passed. It was already six o'clock.

"Osborn," Tony said after taking a long drink of espresso.

"Why Osborn? What motivation could he possibly have for blowing up his own building and killing his board members?" Steve asked.

"I don't know, but something about this doesn't sit right," Tony said.

"Wouldn't it be more likely to be someone with something _against_ Osborn?" Clint asked.

"Not necessarily. Osborn was spared the blast—apparently he was about to stroll in late to the meeting," Fury chimed in, walking into the conference room. "Stark's theory is a valid one."

"Corporate rumor has it the board's been thinking of kicking Osborn out for years—mostly because my company keeps kicking his company's ass," Tony said, unable to keep a slight note of smugness out of his voice. "Gaining controlling interest in the company would be motive enough, but if he knew they were going to throw him out of his _own company_—well, motive doesn't get much better than that."

"It would also be plausible reason—if he _is_ this 'green goblin'—as to why he'd kidnapped Peter—he's just trying to take out the competition. Tony Stark is Iron Man—tough to kill, tough to take down. But his kid? Vulnerable, easy pickings, really. All this time we've been assuming that when the Goblin told Peter he wanted Tony Stark's head on a platter he meant _Iron Man_, but if it's Osborn, it makes much more sense that he'd want the head of Stark Industries gone," Natasha agreed.

"Oh, so, the _same thing I've been saying all week_?" Tony huffed.

"It's a valid theory—_but _we still don't have any solid evidence that it's Osborn. I'm not a hundred percent convinced," Fury said. "But the minute we get an actual lead—" At that moment Maria Hill burst through the door.

"William Hughes wasn't at the board meeting. His kid's sick, he stayed home to take care of him. He lives in a small town outside Albany—the chopper pilots have the address."

"Text it to me," Tony told Maria.

"Avengers, Assemble," Cap said into his comm.

"We're all right here," Clint said.

"Don't question tradition."

They all suited up fairly quickly, but of course Tony suited up the fastest, and of course he could outstrip the helicopters—they were _laughably _slow.

"Iron Man just get to the house and just see what situation we've got—if there _is_ a situation," Cap said.

"Sure thing, Cap," Iron Man responded. "I'm flying over the town now—"

Tony wasn't entirely certain what happened next, but all he knew was that he was yanked out of the sky and suddenly plummeting to the earth. He hit the ground hard, with something on top of him—the Goblin himself.

"Hello, Tony," the Goblin spoke in the most unhinged-sounding voice Tony had ever heard—and he'd heard _Loki_. Tony stuck out a hand and used his repulsor to blast the Goblin off of him and stood up.

"Is it supposed to intimidate me that you know my name, because that's kind of _common knowledge_…" Tony said, and as he finished, the Goblin threw a bomb at him. This was, as far as Tony could tell, his favorite trick. But Tony easily dodged and took to the air. Behind him, a deserted bakery caught on fire. Tony looked around him—it wasn't the only damage that had been caused. Cars were turned over, glass store fronts were broken.

"Tony, what the hell is going on down there?" Cap demanded.

"Target acquired. Got attacked in the center of town," Iron Man responded through gritted teeth as the Goblin hopped on his glider just as Tony took another shot.

"Keep him distracted, Tony, and keep out of civilian areas—we'll be there as soon as we can and scan for remaining civilians," Cap said.

"Sure thing Capsicle," Iron Man replied. The Goblin's glider suddenly grew blades out of the end—well, that was new, Tony thought wryly as he dodged with ease. With any luck, his armor would _break_ the blades, but he wasn't going to risk it. The material might be stronger and sharper than he anticipated. The Goblin kept coming at him, over and over. He threw some ninja-stars, one of which caught in Tony's armor, piercing it about an inch deep. Ok, yes, avoid the blades. He yanked the star out and threw it back at the Goblin, but missed. The devil was faster than he looked, and handier on that glider than was decent. _Or even humanly possible_, Tony thought with dread. The Goblin had already proven himself tricky, but what if he was even more than that? Tony knew that Oscorp specialized in bio-weaponry—was it too far a stretch to think that they had attempted the Super Soldier Serum? Was it too far fetched to think that they may have _succeeded_ to a certain capacity? Iron Man danced through the skies with the Goblin, playing cat and mouse with no indication of who was who.

"All right Tony, we've evacuated _most_ of the civilians to the far south side of town and we're waiting for you on the west side—lure him here but _do not engage_ in any other part of town, there are still some—"

"Bringing the party to you, got it," Tony replied, cutting him off. He headed towards the west, knowing the Goblin would follow—and he did, but the bastard was faster than he looked and better with his aim than Tony had realized. A bomb hit him from above and he went down, down, hitting the earth again. And _now_ he was _pissed_.

"Ok, you've just earned yourself a one-way ticket to the tenth circle of hell, buddy," Iron Man said as the Goblin landed.

"Tony GPS puts you on the east side, do not engage—"

"I've got the fucker, Cap," Tony said.

"IRON MAN THIS IS AN ORDER DO NOT ENGAGE—" Tony brought out his best bomb. It popped out of the armor and made a beeline towards the Goblin. It was a heat-seeking missile, there was no way it could miss, and Tony knew it was good enough to penetrate that thick armor of his, "—THERE ARE STILL—" the Goblin took off into the sky as the missile got close, and Tony smirked, knowing it would follow him up, and he'd waited too long, it would catch him easily—but the missile didn't change course, it headed straight for the overturned taxi, and exploded on impact in a spectacular display of fire and shrapnel. "—SOME CIVILIANS IN THE AREA."

Tony felt his heart stop as he watched the flames.

_He knew what he'd landed in front of_, Tony thought numbly. He flew to the scene and went behind the taxi, but not one of the five people he saw looked like they could possibly be alive.

One was a young woman, maybe just a few years older than Peter. She held the hand of a young man of a similar age. They both had metal sticking out of places where metal definitely did not belong, and blood pooled beneath them. And for one moment, Tony forgot he was in a battle. All he could see was that girl, hand clutched around that boy. Who was he to her? Boyfriend? Brother? Friend? Husband? Or was he just some stranger she'd latched onto, clinging for comfort in this tense situation? Were they scared? Did they think they were going to die? No, probably not. After all, the Avengers were there. The Avengers always saved the day.

That was Tony's last thought before something hit him from behind and he blacked out.

"Oh, God," Steve murmured when he finally arrived on the scene. They'd chased the Goblin around for a half an hour before he finally escaped for good—it was difficult when Iron Man was out and the only other Avenger capable of flight was Thor. They'd tried to take out that damnable glider, but it must have been made of something at least as strong as Tony's gold titanium alloy because it was indestructible. Thor had managed to dent half of it with his hammer on a glancing blow, but that was the only hit he'd got in.

And now that the fight was done, Steve surveyed the east-side street that had been mostly destroyed. They hadn't run to Tony immediately—JARVIS said he was alive and relatively unhurt, just unconscious. They couldn't afford to take care of him during the battle, but now Steve approached, with horror.

Tony looked fine, yes, although his Iron Man suit lay face down and the back sustained a large, black burn. It wasn't Tony that horrified him—it was the five dead civilians that did. A young woman, a young man, a middle-aged woman and an older man—Steve saw a wheelchair not far away. His stomach churned. He'd been to war, he'd fought more battles than he could count, he'd seen plenty of dead bodies and spoken at more funerals than he cared to recall, but seeing dead civilians never failed to rock him to the core.

"Fury we—we're going to need a coroner," Steve said. Fury already knew that, Steve was certain. There was no video of the event, but they all knew what had happened. It was unquestionably Tony's missile that destroyed the taxi the civilians had ducked behind for shelter. But Steve also knew it was an accident, knew that Tony didn't know… But of course, that didn't matter to Fury. Iron Man had ignored a direct order—twice. In Fury's eyes, he was very, very guilty. In the Captain's eyes, he was very, very guilty. But Steve's heart ached for him. He knew what this would do to him. He knew this would _destroy _him. And it killed Steve to know that he couldn't be there to help, that Tony wouldn't _want_ him there.

"I know that, Captain," Fury replied. Steve could hear the weight in his voice. "And all of you, officially this was the Goblin's work, do you understand? He threw a stray bomb, civilians got killed, nothing we could have done."

"Understood," Cap replied, with several echoes from his fellow Avengers. Steve gently turned over the Iron Man suit, and no matter what JARVIS had told him, he still felt relief to see the bright glow of the arc reactor. Steve lifted the face piece gently, revealing the unconscious Tony.

"Tony, hey, can you hear me?" Steve asked softly. Tony's eyes fluttered, then opened.

"Steve?" he asked hoarsely. "What—what happened?"

"Goblin took you out while you were distracted. We had him on the ropes for a while, but he got away again—that glider makes life difficult for us," Steve said. "Do you think you can get up? We're going to vacate the area and let the clean up crews do the rest."

"I—yeah, I can—" Tony stumbled a bit, so Steve took his arm and helped him to his iron clad feet.

"Medical's really going to want to check you out," Steve said, concern heavy in his voice.

"Oh, yeah, I know, that Kathy's always wanting to check me out, but she can't have me, I'm a marri—she's not my type, you know," Tony joked. Joking Tony was usually a good sign, but at the moment Steve wasn't so sure.

"I'm serious, Tony, we need to get you to medical," Steve said, more urgently.

"Is that an order, Cap?" Tony asked wryly.

"Yes sir, it is," Steve said.

"Well, I've already ignored several orders from you today, so what can ignoring one more hurt?" Tony asked. His faceplate slammed down back into place.

"Tony—" Steve began, but Iron Man had already taken to the air. Steve watched him go, helplessly, feeling very small and very useless. He sighed heavily as he made his way to the rendezvous point.

To his surprise, Steve found that Tony was already there, getting 'debriefed' by Fury. Screaming matches weren't an uncommon thing with the two of them, but Fury speaking in low words and Tony just taking it, unflinching, well, that was new. New, and all kinds of _not good_. Steve felt his stomach turn into a knot, but he walked over anyway, ignoring the looks of all his gathered teammates.

"It's better this way," Tony said.

"I'm not so sure about that, Stark. I haven't made a decision yet, you shouldn't make a hasty one either—"

"It's not hasty. I'm out. I'm done. I'm old besides. You can get anyone to fly one of these suits. Hell, I'll make an idiot-proof version. Just put Rhodey in, or someone of his choosing, or Cap's, you don't want anyone untrustworthy going for a joy ride," Tony said, and Cap was pretty certain that his stomach had fallen out of his body entirely.

"Tony—what are you saying?" Steve asked. Tony turned to him and looked him right in the eyes. His faceplate was up, his face was earnest.

"I'm out. I'm done. I quit the team, I'm leaving the Avengers—no, don't look at me like that, you need the suit not that hero—hell, Cap, for all I care you can take one of these things. You'd sure as fuck put it to better use—"

"_Tony_—"

"—Don't. Just don't. You'd have to do this anyway, it's better for everyone that I do it myself," Tony said. The faceplate closed. "You'll have a suit by tomorrow, Fury. Just make sure Cap approves the pilot." With that, Tony took to the air, and he was gone. For a second, Steve just stood there. And then he sat down on the grass.

He didn't realize anyone was talking to him until he felt a hand on his shoulder.

"_Steve_, can you _hear me_?" Natasha asked.

"What? Oh, sorry, were you talking to me?" Steve asked. She was crouched beside him, staring right into his face.

"Yes, I've been talking to you. I was afraid you'd gone into shock. I'm not convinced you haven't," Natasha said.

"I—I'll—I'm—I'll be fine," Steve finally decided on. "Just—give me a minute."

"Do you think you can get into the helicopter?" she asked gently.

"What? Oh, yes, of course," Steve said. He took a breath and got to his feet. He pretended not to notice his teammates' eyes on him, pretended that he wasn't going red with embarrassment that they should see their leader like that.

They debriefed as quickly as possible, and Steve left the instant that they were done. He heard Natasha calling to him, but for once he pretended that he couldn't hear. He took the subway home, sent Peter a text, ate leftover lasagna from the fridge, took a sleeping pill (he'd needed one every night since Sunday), and curled up in bed, not wanting to think, never wanting to think again.

There was a horrible, awful noise, and it was right by Steve's head. Steve groaned—how long had he been asleep for? It couldn't have been long, a few hours at most. He looked over at his digital clock. 11:30 proclaimed the big, red letters. Steve sighed and picked up the horrible, wailing object—his phone.

"'lo?" Steve answered.

"Steve, this is Pepper," answered a crisp voice.

"Oh. Hi Pepper. What can I—what can I help you with?" Steve asked, yawning.

"Tony," she replied. Steve shot up.

"What happened?" he asked.

"You tell me! He's drunk. He's very, very drunk and he's locked himself in the lab and I can't get in and JARVIS can't let me in, either—" Pepper said, sounding distressed.

"Ok, ok, I'm on my way, I'll be right there," Steve said, flying out of bed and grabbing the nearest pair of pants. He put the phone on speaker and tossed it on the bed. "You can go, Pepper, I'll take care of things."

"I'll wait until you get here," Pepper said.

"How about Peter? Is he around? Is he ok?" Steve asked anxiously, pulling a shirt over his head.

"Peter's fine, he's the one who called me," Pepper replied. "He said Tony was drunk and mad and—well, I don't know if Tony kicked him out or Peter kicked himself out, but he had Happy drive him over to a friend's house to stay the night." Steve swore.

"Why the hell didn't he call _me_?" he asked, lacing up his shoes.

"I don't think he wanted you to know," Pepper said quietly. Steve froze for a second. Right. Of course he wouldn't. Because he knew it would make the situation worse. But it still absolutely killed him.

"Right," Steve replied. "I'm so sorry you've had to deal with this Pepper." Steve grabbed his jacket, his wallet, keys, and phone and headed out the door.

"It's not like it's the first time," Pepper said. Steve sighed.

He took a taxi to Stark Tower and rode the elevator to the second-to-top floor, where Tony kept his lab.

"Access Restricted," JARVIS told him stubbornly. The elevator doors remained shut.

"JARVIS, it's Steve, let me in," Steve said.

"Access Restricted, Master Rogers. I cannot," JARVIS replied.

"Restricted even to me?" Steve asked.

"Master Stark restricted access to everyone not himself shortly before entering the lab. I cannot let anyone in," JARVIS spoke. But then he paused. "But I do have override codes."

"Override codes?" Steve asked.

"Master Stark programmed them about a month ago," JARVIS said. "I, of course, cannot use override codes on my own system, however."

"Oh, of course not," Steve agreed.

"But I do _know_ the override codes. They are stored in my data banks."

"Well, isn't that just interesting. Say, are those restricted access, too?"

"No, Master Rogers."

"Then, JARVIS, please give me the override codes to your system," Steve said.

"Certainly, sir," JARVIS replied and Steve could almost hear the relief in the AI's voice. "Override code 3-2-6-5-Beta-1-4-9-Omega."

"Ok, JARVIS, override code 3-2-6-5-Beta-1-4-9-Omega," Steve repeated.

"Override code accepted," JARVIS spoke.

"Fantastic. I'd like to get into the lab, now," Steve said.

"Of course, sir," JARVIS replied. The elevator pinged and the doors opened. Steve stepped out into the lab.

The lab was, of course, not _just_ a lab. There was a whole section with a couch, a mini-fridge, and a television in one corner, because the lab was also Tony's hideout. Like a little kid with a tree house, Tony came to the lab whenever he needed to get away from the world. Usually he worked, he created. Sometimes, though, he drank. Steve found him passed out on the rug of the pseudo living area, and he rushed over.

"Tony?" he asked. Tony groaned, and Steve breathed a sigh of relief—lying like he was, he could easily choke on his own vomit and die. He gently tapped the side of his face. "Tony, hey, get up." Tony just groaned in response. Steve sighed. He picked Tony up with ease and headed up the short staircase that led to the penthouse. He walked into the bedroom and gently set Tony down on the bed. He started peeling off his jacket.

"Mmmph," Tony said as Steve moved his arms. He cracked an eye open. "Steeeeve?"

"Hi, Tony," Steve said. He finished peeling off his jacket.

"What're…what're you doin' here?" Tony asked as Steve removed his tie.

"Making sure you don't accidentally kill yourself," Steve said, matter-of-fact. He undid the buttons on Tony's shirt, and then peeled that off, too. "You can yell at me to get out of your house later."

"Mmph," was Tony's only reply, and then he was out again. Steve removed his pants, and then drew up the covers around Tony's shoulders. He folded the clothes neatly and set them aside. And then Tony woke again suddenly and started retching over the edge of the bed.

"Yep, that was what I was afraid of. But hey, it didn't kill you," Steve said. Tony just looked at him, his eyes glazed. Steve sighed. He retrieved a wet wash cloth and a glass of water from the kitchen. He wiped up Tony's face and then handed him the glass. "Drink." Tony, for once, obeyed, choking down half the glass. "_All_ of it, Tony." Tony moaned again but he did as he was bid, and then Steve took the glass away.

He left to get cleaning supplies and then scrubbed the sick out of the carpet. He didn't know Tony was still awake until he spoke.

"Why're you…why're you…" he said.

"We've already established I came here to ensure that you lived through the night, Tony," Steve said patiently, but Tony shook his head.

"Nice," he said. "Why're you…so nice…" Steve removed his gloves, the carpet as clean as it was going to get for now—at least it smelled like lemons, now. Steve sat next to him on the bed, ran a hand through Tony's hair. Tony closed his eyes at the contact.

"Because I love you," Steve said simply, not taking his hand away. "Because you've had an awful day. Because, as mad as I am at you right now, I know what you're feeling. I know why you felt like you had to do this. And frankly, if I could get drunk I'm not so sure I wouldn't have today." Tony's breathing was even—he'd fallen asleep again. Steve sighed as he looked at his husband. How had things gone so wrong?

"I tried to save it," Steve said, his voice breaking. "I tried to keep the Avengers together, I tried to make sure we would always be able to protect the world, I tried so hard and—I only ended up ripping us all apart. This—today—this is as much my fault as it is yours, Tony. And the Avengers breaking apart…that's all on me. And our family falling apart? That's me, too. I've caused so much pain in the last couple of weeks, done so much wrong—and the problem, the thing of it is, is that I don't know what I could have done differently. I don't know that I _did_ do anything wrong except for the fact that I _clearly_ did or we wouldn't be in this mess. And I hate myself for it." There were tears running down his face, but he didn't care. There wasn't anyone around to see except Tony, and he was asleep. "I've done this to myself. To all of us. And I've lost you, haven't I? I've well and truly lost you and I'm _never_ going to get you back, and I can't—I can't live without you Tony and I honestly don't know how I'm going to do this, how I'm going to live out my life without you in it.

"You're a pain in the ass. That should make me want to go but it never has. I love it. I love every smart remark, every snarky comment, all of it. Because it's you. It's all just…you. And it works. I don't know how it works or why. It shouldn't. But it does. _We_ do. Or we did. And I guess that's the thing of it—if you don't know how it worked in the first place, how do you fix it? Not even you can figure that one out, can you, you smart-mouthed genius? Not even you." He sighed. He kissed Tony's forehead and then got up, removing the cleaning supplies from the floor and heading to the couch. He'd sleep in the bed but…they'd crossed certain lines, and there was no crossing back.

At eight o'clock, Steve's alarm woke him up. Despite the fact that he regularly rose at seven, eight felt too early on this particular day. He got up off the couch, sore from the uncomfortable surface, and stretched. He wandered into the kitchen, got out a tall glass of water and two aspirin and then went into the bedroom. Predictably, Tony was still asleep. But Steve wasn't going to let him stay that way for long. He sat beside him and shook his shoulder.

"Tony. Tony, wake up," Steve said. Tony looked up at him, and then he blinked.

"Steve?"

"Yes, Tony, I'm here, we've been over this. Twice now. I said I was making sure you didn't kill yourself, and that you can yell at me to get out of your house later. Well, I guess 'later' would be now, but I haven't said my piece yet so you don't get to yell," Steve said. He handed Tony the water and the aspirin. "Take the aspirin and drink the whole glass." Tony just blinked for a second, but then he did as Steve asked.

"How did you-?"

"Pepper called."

"How did Pepper-?"

"_Peter_ called."

"Oh. _Oh_. Oh, God…"

"Yeah, that was my first thought, too," Steve said.

"Is he—did I…?"

"He's fine. Either you kicked him out or he kicked himself out and he's staying with someone," Steve said.

"Someone? I—Oh, oh, God I kind of kicked him out," Tony said, putting his face in his hands.

"Frankly I'd rather that you kicked him out than got drunk in front of him," Steve said.

"What kind of father _kicks their son out_ so they can _drink?_ God, I'm worse than How—"

"Stop, Tony," Steve said. "Let's not go down that road, you're beating yourself up enough as it is. Here." Steve handed Tony his phone. "You call him. You apologize profusely. You explain what happened."

"Of course," Tony agreed quietly, turning the phone over in his hands. Steve got up.

"You call me if you need anything," Steve said.

"Going already?"

"I've been here all night, Tony," Steve said with a sigh. "You call me if you need anything. I mean it. And if you ever pull something like that again with Peter nearby I swear to the good Lord I will kick your ass."

"I'll deserve it," Tony replied. Steve turned to go. "Steve—" Steve turned to look at him. For a second, a half a second maybe, Steve thought Tony was just going to _break_. But then he looked down at his hands. "Thank you."

"You're welcome, Tony," Steve said. And then, finally, he left.

Nothing truly extraordinary happened after that. On Monday, Spider-Man joined up with the team again and helped out. Spider-Man's special skill set kept Fury off his back for the day about what they were going to do with the suit Tony had given them, which Steve appreciated. He appreciated it even more when the kid (it was becoming abundantly clear from his pop-culture references, speech, and brazen style of fighting that he was, indeed, a kid) showed up again on Tuesday and on Wednesday when a bizarre villain called the Vulture continued his jewel-theft spree.

On Thursday, his one true day of down time that week, he texted Peter and asked him to show up to dinner tomorrow at his apartment, and to stay the weekend if he was so inclined. Peter just sent him back the simple text of 'ok', but that single word afforded Steve more happiness and more relief than he'd felt in a month.

Friday he spent getting the apartment ready. Of course, Peter's room was already set up, but Steve spent time making it _perfect_. He put up posters of Peter's favorite scientists, his favorite superheroes, real and fictional (excepting the Avengers, of course, because Steve always found getting his son Avengers merchandise was a bit odd, even if Tony insisted on it) on the walls to make it feel more like home for him. The sheets and the duvet were the same ones he'd had at their house in Brooklyn, though of course he'd had to buy new ones. He made sure the fridge was stocked with sprite and pudding cups, and he slaved in the kitchen making Peter's favorite dinner (chicken parmesan) from scratch. At around five o'clock, there was a knock on the door and Steve practically flew to open it.

"Peter!" he said as he opened the door. Peter smiled.

"Hey Pops. Uh, long time, no see?" he said. Steve just grabbed him in an enormous hug and didn't let go.

"How on earth did I deal with sending you to Boy Scout camp? I can't handle being without you for two weeks," Steve said, finally letting go. Peter came in through the door, shutting it behind him, and set his stuff down.

"College might be an issue, then," Peter said with a small grin.

"Oh, don't mention that right now, I can't handle it," Steve said. "How have you been? How's your new school? Have you made any new friends? Of course you have, who are they? What are they like? Are your teachers ok? Did you join any clubs? Have you started your college applications yet? Because—"

"POPS, ok, wow, slow down," Peter said, laughing. "And uh, fine, fine, yes, Harry, mainly but some of the other kids are cool too, and Harry's nice, uh teacher's are fine I guess, no I didn't join any clubs—I'm not actually sure Hawthorne has clubs… And uh, no not yet but I'm getting to it. Also, I'm starving, is there anything to eat?"

"Yes, there's plenty to eat—let me guess, you've been living off of pizza and pudding cups?" Steve asked.

"Chinese and Shwarma, too," Peter added cheerfully. Steve rolled his eyes.

"Well I made chicken parmesan—"

"_Yes_!"

"—so why don't we just sit down to an early dinner?"

Peter was amenable to that, and Steve was quite content. Peter caught him up with his time at school, and Steve was happy to discover that Peter was (finally) making friends. There came a comfortable lull in the conversation, during which Steve was happy to just eat, but Peter just stared at the food.

"What?" Steve asked. "What's wrong? Is it burnt?"

"No, Pops, it's—it's great, really just—" Peter took a deep breath. "This is your _apartment_." Steve put down his utensils, ran a hand through his hair and took a breath of his own.

"Yeah I was wondering when this conversation would happen. I guess now is as good a time as any," Steve said reluctantly.

"This is _an apartment_," Peter said again.

"I know that," Steve said.

"Does Dad?"

"Yes." Peter paused for a moment.

"You're not wearing your ring, either."

"No, I'm not."

"Has the paperwork been served?" Steve didn't need to ask what for.

"Not yet."

"But you think it will be."

"Eventually."

Peter nodded. He didn't speak for a minute, and Steve watched him carefully. He hated what this was doing to his son, what this was doing to Tony, what this was doing to _him_. He wished it could be another way. Any other way.

"Thanks for being honest with me," Peter said finally.

"I'll never lie to you if I can help it, Peter," Steve said firmly.

"You lie to me all the time," Peter said with a laugh. "You lie more than Dad."

"What?" Steve asked, affronted. "No I don't!"

"Oh, sure. 'Hey Pops, I love this, do you like this t-shirt?' '_It's…great, Peter_.' Bull, it said 'Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll' on the front, that's like, everything you stand against," Peter said, still laughing.

"I—I have nothing against Rock and Roll. Or sex. Or prescription drugs."

"Kind of missing the point, Pops," Peter said, an amused grin on his face.

"Oh, like you're one to talk '_Yeah, Dad, these eggs are delicious_', you little liar. No one could call Tony's eggs delicious. _No one_. _Dogs _leave them on the floor," Steve said.

"Oh, come _on_—" Peter said, and their bantering continued for a good part of an hour, passing from 'lying' to making fun of one another's fashion choices, to making fun of their music, to their choice of television shows, until finally they settled on a specific channel on TV, long after dinner was finished, and watched a movie. They fell asleep on the couch to the songs of _The Wizard of Oz_.

Peter stayed for the weekend, and eventually they developed a routine. Peter would come over on Friday, stay until Monday morning, and then go back to Stark Tower. Of course, Peter wasn't always _around_ much on the weekend—sometimes he had a date night with Gwen, sometimes he was hanging out with that friend of his, Harry, but they got enough time together to keep Steve from going crazy.

And the Avengers picked up a new routine as well, with their latest honorary member, Spider-Man helping on a regular basis. He'd managed to tap into their comm. systems, so they had his signal and could buzz him when he was needed. But he wouldn't take off his mask, no matter how many times Steve or even Fury asked.

October became November. November became December. His and Tony's fifteenth wedding anniversary passed. Steve willed himself not to be sad, not to think about it. Christmas was more difficult, as he got Christmas Eve with Peter and Tony got Christmas day. The separation was painfully obvious; he spent the day with Bruce, and then wondered what on earth Bruce usually did on the holidays. But then he decided he didn't want to think about that, either. It was sad, too.

January became February, February became March, March became April and Peter got his official acceptance into Empire State University—on full scholarship. His girlfriend, Gwen, had gotten in on the same terms, and Steve knew Peter was thrilled that they would be going to the same school. April turned into May, and Thor and Jane welcomed a baby girl into the world, and then May became early June. It had been eight months since he and Tony separated. He hadn't seen him at all in that time. All of the Avengers showed up to Peter's graduation at Hawthorne (earning bug-eyes from all the students and many of the parents, too), so it was fine for Steve to attend as well as Tony without any gossip popping up. But it was weird. It was stiff and formal and it felt like he didn't even know Tony. It felt wrong. But he smiled for Peter and took pictures, though not a one of them was the family shot it should have been.

It was one day after Peter's graduation that Fury told him to pick someone to put in the suit, because despite Spider-Man's presence, a suit would still be _useful_. Steve, doing something he'd never done and never really thought he'd do, told Fury to go fuck himself.

Tony would have loved to have seen it.

It was two days after Peter's graduation that there was an unexpected knock on his door. No one ever knocked on Steve's door. Peter had keys, and besides a few of the Avengers, no one knew where he lived. Confused but curious, Steve opened the door, and was confronted with one Tony Stark.

This wasn't _Tony_, and yet it _was_ Tony. This was Tony Stark, playboy, billionaire, genius, philanthropist, superhero, narcissist. This was not Tony, Dad to Peter, husband to Steve, Iron Man. Tony was in an expensive suit, probably for work, and wearing equally fancy and expensive sunglasses, which annoyed Steve. He hated Tony's sunglasses, because it always meant that he couldn't really read him.

"Ok, we've been doing this 'stay away' dance for eight months now and I'm sick of it," Tony said, breezing through the door. Steve shut it behind him. "So here." A folder was shoved under Steve's nose. "Time to move on with our lives, I guess."

"Tony, what—" Steve asked, but then he opened the folder. "Oh."

"All signed and sealed and ready to go, just needs your signature. Shame we didn't get a pre-nup, I guess you're going to take me for all I'm worth, but, hey, more fool I, right?"

"Tony," Steve said.

"I mean, it's well within your rights, big guy, and besides, I think you could use the money—spruce up this place a little, I mean my _God_ this place is drab—"

"_Tony_."

"—seriously it's like you're unaware that are anything other than neutral colors even exist—"

Steve couldn't take it anymore. He sat down on the couch, slammed the folder on the table, and put his head in his hands. Tony, mercifully, fell silent.

"God damn it, Tony," Steve said slowly, quietly, "If you're going to serve me divorce papers you could at least have the decency to act like the last twenty years happened and not like you met me a week ago. And you could take off those fucking sunglasses." Steve never once took his hands away from his face. He couldn't. If he did, Tony would see the tears. He never cried in front of Tony, in front of anyone. And he wouldn't do it now. _Especially_ not now.

"We both knew it would end up here," Tony said. Steve heard the clatter as Tony's sunglasses were put on the table, felt the couch sag as he sat next to him.

"_Did_ we?"

"I took off my sunglasses, you could do the same."

"I'm not wearing sunglasses."

"No, but you're wearing your hands," Tony said, and Steve felt Tony start to tug them away, and at first he resisted, but as Tony kept tugging, he eventually let his hands be moved. Tony's eyes widened.

"You're crying," he said.

"Are you sure? I think I might just be sweating," Steve snapped, then looked away.

"You're _crying_."

"My husband just surprised me with divorce papers how the hell do you think I'd react to that? Jesus, Tony, _fuck_."

"We've been separated for eight months," Tony said, still sounding flabbergasted.

"It's not the same thing and you know it or you wouldn't be here with papers."

"You're not wearing your wedding ring."

"You took yours off first."

They were silent for a moment and Steve took the opportunity to wipe the wetness off his cheeks.

"I don't want to be stuck like this," Tony said at last. "I can't be stuck like this, married but separated. It's either on or it's off, and it's been off for a while."

"I don't want to either," Steve said. "But Tony, I love you—"

"We haven't spoken in _eight months_—"

"That's not proof that I don't love you," Steve said. "I love you, Tony. Why the hell else would I not only _put up_ with all of your shit but actually _enjoy_ it? Why would I be married to you for fifteen years if I didn't love you? Love's not something that just disappears—or…is it?" And this was where fear gripped Steve, a greater fear than he'd felt in a long time. Because it was _Tony_ serving the divorce papers, _Tony _who wanted out—what if Tony just…didn't love him anymore?

"Of course it isn't," Tony said. "But—"

"We could still work this out," Steve said. He put a hand on Tony's cheek, relishing the feeling. "We could work this out."

"And, what, just agree to go back to being married and living together and ignore every problem that got us here in the first place and make it harder on ourselves when we end up in this exact same situation two, three years down the road? Make it harder on _Peter_?" Steve's hand fell from Tony's cheek. "I don't want that. So I'll ask you—has anything changed?" Steve looked down.

"I—I don't know," Steve admitted. "I really don't."

"I do," Tony said quietly. "It's ok, Steve. It's—really. This was inevitable, I guess."

"No," Steve said. "It wasn't. And it isn't." Steve got up from the couch. "I'm not signing." Tony sighed heavily and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Steve, don't make this harder—"

"Go back to your lawyer and serve me papers for contested divorce, Tony, because I'm not signing," Steve said. He knew he was being stubborn, but he wasn't just going to stand aside and let this happen.

"Steve, you know I could call my lawyer and she'd draw them up within the hour. This won't make a difference," Tony said, standing.

"It will to me," Steve replied. "You married me, Tony. You promised. I promised. And I'll be damned if I just let you go."

"Why are you making this so hard?" Tony practically whined.

"Because it shouldn't be easy," Steve said. "Because I love you. Because I—I can't let go. Because I don't want these past eight months to be a mirror for the rest of my life." Steve took a step closer. "And—if I'm wrong, then I'm wrong but—I don't think you really want to divorce me, either."

His heart was racing in terror, but he took a chance. He leaned down and gently captured Tony's lips with his, a soft, sweet, chaste kiss that was over too quickly for Steve, but he didn't want to make Tony uncomfortable. "And besides, you need someone to drag you out of that lab and make sure you don't kill yourself in a tragic accident."

"Yeah. Yeah. I need…" Tony started, sounding a bit dazed, but then he seemed to snap back into clarity. "Wait. _Wait_. That night. Eight months ago. You put me into bed and took care of me—I can't believe I never even thought of this—how the _hell_ did you get into my lab?"

"Oh, JARVIS helped me," Steve said, a bit jarred by the change of subject, and more than a little hurt. He'd thought he'd gotten somewhere. But apparently not.

"What do you mean, _JARVIS helped you_?" Tony asked. "First of all, JARVIS doesn't even like you. Second of all, he couldn't have let you in, he was programmed not to, and for all the strange little quirks he has, he can't ignore a direct command."

"Oh, well, he had override codes. Said you'd installed them about a month ago, so, I guess that would be nine months ago now," Steve said with a shrug. "He read them out to me."

"_OVERRIDE CODES?_" Tony shouted, clearly furious.

"You were the one who installed them!" Steve said defensively.

"No that's not—_I didn't install any override codes_. What _exactly_ did he say?"

"He said Master Stark had installed them! That's what he said! You installed them!" Steve insisted, feeling even more defensive and a _lot_ hurt. First divorce papers, now he was being yelled at for _helping_ him because he'd used stupid override codes?

"Motherfucker! That little—" Tony kept swearing, although Steve wasn't sure what it was because it was in French or Italian or something, which probably meant that Tony didn't want Steve to _know_ what he was saying. That was never a good sign. Tony grabbed his sunglasses from off the table and headed towards the door.

"Tony! Where are you going? I thought—" Steve said, but Tony was clearly preoccupied.

"We'll talk about this later! I'm sorry, I have to go!" Tony said absently, swinging open the door and quickly disappearing down the hall. Steve sighed. There went the whirlwind.


	6. Chapter 6

Tony Stark had never been so furious in his entire life. Well, no, that was a lie. But this had to rank in the top 20. He should have seen it. He should have _seen _it, but he would _never _have suspected Peter of something so _nefarious_—God, had he raised a _supervillain_ or something?

He was having JARVIS run scans on _himself _now, _Jesus_, to try to find whatever the hell Peter had been hiding. And so, when he heard the elevator ding, he knew who it was, and the rational part of his brain was already gone. He folded his arms and watched the elevator doors as they opened. His son looked surprised. _Surprised_! He had the nerve to look _surprised_ as if he didn't know perfectly well what he'd done.

"Uh, hi?" Peter said. "I told you I was going out—or, well, I tried, you weren't around, I told JARVIS to—"

"You. Installed. _Override codes_," Tony said.

"Oh," Peter said. He sounded small. "Right."

"You installed _override codes_ on _JARVIS_. On _my_ AI. On _JARVIS!_" Tony said, snarling at the end. Maybe it was overkill, but he wasn't thinking straight.

"I, yeah, I did," Peter said tiredly.

"I don't know what all you've been hiding from me Peter James Stark, but believe me _I will find out_," Tony said, his tone threatening.

"I don't want to do this tonight—" Peter started, but it only pissed Tony off even more.

"Well too _fucking bad_," Tony shouted. "I thought we weren't going to do this again, the lying, the covering shit up, but obviously I was a _fucking moron_ to think that my teenage son would be _honest_ with me—"

"Dad, come on, I didn't do anything not really—"

"Oh, you didn't do anything? That's why you felt compelled to install _override codes on my AI?_ Do you know how _dangerous_ something like that could be, if they got in the wrong hands?"

"I'm the only one who knows them, no one could hack it, not even you knew about it—"

"JARVIS knows it!" Tony yelled. "JARVIS knew it well enough to give it to your Pops!"

"But, JARVIS would never put you or me or anyone in danger—"

"JARVIS IS A COMPUTER, PETER!" Tony roared. "Do you not understand what that MEANS? He's an AI, _artificial_ intelligence. He's safe, but he's not impervious, not perfect, do you have any idea what kind of _damage_ you could have caused? What damage that, for all I know, has already been done? And not to mention that, when the _hell_ did you think it was a good idea to _touch my stuff_?"

Peter flinched at that last one. And then he just walked away. He walked back to his room, Tony shouting after him.

"WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU'RE GOING? YOU GET BACK HERE RIGHT NOW! WE'RE HAVING THIS DISCUSSION WHETHER YOU WANT TO OR NOT PETER JAMES STARK! DON'T YOU DARE CLOSE THAT DOOR—" Tony knew, somewhere in the back of his mind, that this was not grade A parenting technique. But that same part of his mind also just laughed—since when had Tony been a good parent, anyway?

Peter shut and locked the door behind him.

"—YOU OPEN THAT DOOR RIGHT NOW, PETER, I'M NOT KIDDING, I'LL GET JARVIS TO OPEN THAT DOOR—" If Tony had been a good parent, Peter wouldn't have endangered himself and Tony and Stark Industries and the Avengers and _JARVIS,_ for the love of God, by installing override codes in JARVIS. If Tony had been a good parent, Peter wouldn't have locked that door.

Peter opened the door and walked out again, passing Tony. Tony felt his blood boil.

"What do you think you're doing?" Tony asked dangerously.

"I'm going out," Peter said calmly.

"No, you aren't," Tony said.

"Yes, I am," Peter said, his eyes defiant. "Stop the elevator, I'll take the stairs. Lock the doors—well I figured out how to install override codes once, I'm pretty sure I can figure it out again." Tony just stared at his son. Was this really Peter? Was Peter saying this? How fucking _dare _he—Peter opened the elevator door and walked inside. The doors shut behind him and Tony had no idea what to do.

What had _his_ father done every time Tony had pulled the kind of shit Peter was pulling now?

Tony nearly slapped himself. If he was looking to _his dad_ for parenting advice, something was seriously wrong with this picture. He took a calming breath and counted to ten, advice Natasha had given him once upon a time.

One, Two, Three, Four—

No, this was bullshit. He grabbed his phone and dialed Steve. The phone rang but he didn't pick up.

"Hey, Steve, look, I kind of flipped out on Peter about the whole override codes thing—he completely deserved it, but he left the Tower. I think he'll head over to you so just—He's in trouble, Steve, he put _override codes_ into JARVIS, I don't think I have to tell you how dangerous that is, not to mention what HE might have been doing out from underneath JARVIS all-seeing-eyes. So I just wanted to give you a heads up about all that. Bye," Tony said, then hung up the phone. Hopefully Steve would get the message soon, preferably before Peter got there. Tony headed back over to the main interface for JARVIS.

"Anything unusual, JARVIS?" Tony asked.

"Nothing yet, sir," JARVIS said. "All illicit footage seems to be during testing periods. Young Master Stark wanted to be certain the codes would function correctly. I must say, it's strange watching these videos and not being capable of finding duplicates in my main memory banks."

"Yeah, he was basically drugging you," Tony grumbled. "I can't believe him."

"I do not think Young Master Stark intended any ill will towards me, Master Stark," JARVIS said.

"He may not have intended it but it happened anyway," Tony said. "I don't like it. On a lot of levels. Just keep running through those files. Let me know when you find something weird."

"There is a rather lot of footage. This could take quite some time," JARVIS replied.

"Do it as fast as you can," Tony said. He walked over to the bar, poured himself a bourbon. Peter wasn't coming back tonight, after all, and he could really use a stiff drink. He'd only taken a few gulps when his cell rang.

"Steve?" he asked.

"Hey, Tony," Steve replied on the other end. He sounded troubled. But then, he sounded troubled whenever they spoke now. "I just got out of the shower. Peter's not here. Not yet anyway. I'll keep you posted."

"I'll give Bruce a call, he might have headed over there," Tony said, unconcerned.

But when he called Bruce, Bruce had no idea where he was. Tony threw back the rest of his bourbon and waited, going through files with JARVIS, working on his latest designs—an hour went by, but neither Steve nor Bruce had called.

"Shit," Tony swore. He called Steve. "No luck?"

"None," Steve said. He sounded worried now. "Let's—let's not assume anything but—I'm betting he's with one of his friends. Do we have contact info for any of them?"

"No," Tony said with a sigh. "And I can't ask the school. Confidentiality agreements and all that. Shit."

"Let's not worry until the morning. We'll give Peter some time to cool off and calm down," Steve said.

"All right," Tony said. They hung up.

Tony didn't sleep at all. But then, that was par for the course these days.

Steve was awake all night. All he could think was _kidnapped_. Or worse. He remembered waiting with Tony in the hospital one day—was it just a year ago?—praying that Peter would pull through after being shot. He'd only been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Peter had been through so much in his life. Most of it was their fault, the accident of his birth. He just _happened_ to have two superheroes for parents. Trouble came with the territory, and Steve hated that the trouble had occasionally extended to him. Natasha and Clint's kids had discreet SHIELD agents guarding them 24/7 (which was _different_ from babysitting, of course, which they would never do, knowing what terrors those twins were), and Steve was beginning to wonder whether or not the same would be good for Peter. If he was still—no, that type of thinking didn't bear expanding upon. He was fine. Peter was fine.

Steve chanted that over and over again but it didn't make it any more real. There were no messages on his phone. He'd texted Peter several times through the night, as surely Tony had, and maybe Bruce, but there was no answer.

Finally at five in the morning, Tony called.

"I wrestled with the ethics for about two minutes once my brain started working again but then I decided I didn't care. It was driving me crazy. I traced Peter's phone—he's with Gwen," Tony said. Steve breathed an audible sigh of relief.

"Good. Great. JARVIS done sorting through those files yet?" Steve asked.

"Not yet. I'll call again when I know something," Tony said, and then hung up. Steve sighed. It was the most he'd spoken to his husband in eight months. The knowledge made his heart physically ache. How had he let it go this far? How had he let it get this bad? How had he fucked things up so thoroughly? Because of course, Steve had no doubt that this was his fault. He'd known that from the start. What he didn't know was how to fix it.

Knowing that Peter was safe, but troubled by his thoughts, Steve settled into an uneasy sleep. He probably wouldn't have slept for long on his own anyway, but he was rudely awakened by his comm. on the bedside table. An alarm went off to indicate someone had turned theirs on. Steve shook off all grogginess from sleep and stuck the device in his ear.

"Green Meanie in Brooklyn," Spider-Man said, breathless. "I'm still recovering from an injury I could use some help, I think three or four civilians are already down—I'm a block away from George's Café—" Spider-Man moaned in pain, and Steve felt his stomach flip. He'd seen that wound from earlier. He could imagine what was happening to it just now. Steve changed into his costume in two seconds flat and grabbed his shield.

"Does anybody copy?" Spider-Man asked desperately. Steve could hear screams in the background.

"Captain America online—Avengers, _assemble_—Spider-Man just hang in there as long as you can, keep him away from civilians, I'll be there in one minute," the Captain said, running out the door to his apartment. George's Café was close, but even with his running abilities it would take a minute or two to get there.

"I think hanging in here is kind of my only option right now," Spider-Man replied in a strained voice.

It didn't take long for Steve to reach George's café, and from there he only had to go against the crowd of people running away. He rushed through the mob until he could hear the sound of the glider, and then he saw them, fighting up in the sky, Spider-Man swinging off the sides of the buildings. If they were fighting all the way up there, the Captain thought with despair, there would be very little he could do. But just then, Spider-Man twisted to avoid blades jutting out from the Goblin's glider, and the Goblin himself hit him full on with his body, knocking him out of the sky. He fell on top of a car with a loud crash as the car's alarm went off.

The Goblin landed, picking up his glider, and started towards Spider-Man. _Now_ was his chance.

"Why don't you bring the party to me, Goblin?" Steve called out, throwing his shield. The Goblin turned his head, only to get hit full in the face by the trusty weapon before it turned back around to return to the Captain. The Goblin shook it off, and kept on going towards Spider-Man, towards the _kid_. Steve wondered if the kid was all right. He wasn't moving on top of that car. Steve doubted that those stitches had held up, meaning he was probably bleeding pretty severely, if he was still alive. The Captain shook off those thoughts and instead rushed right at the Goblin, engaging in hand-to-hand.

The Goblin was surprisingly swift, surprisingly strong. If the Goblin was human under that armor, he had to have a variant of the Super Soldier Serum, Steve knew. The Captain tried to put the Goblin down, but the slippery bugger always managed to get back up—and head towards Peter. Steve quickly glanced behind him—the kid had gotten up. So, he was alive. But Steve could already see the blood seeping through the gash in his not-yet-repaired costume.

"Spider-Man, go, just get out of here!" the Captain ordered through the comm.

"Can't," Spider-Man said in barely more than a whisper. Winded, Steve thought, or maybe worse, maybe had a punctured lung. "My mother—he knows—who I am—he'll kill her—have to stop him—" Spider-Man slowly approached a wall and climbed up. As the Captain and the Goblin fought, Spider-Man reached out an arm, spraying the Goblin in the face with web. The Goblin just ripped it off, not even missing a beat, and made a beeline for Spider-Man. Spider-Man just waited, and waited, and waited until he was almost on him, and then he just dropped to the ground and the Goblin smashed into the wall above him like something out of a cartoon.

A black van pulled up and out came Hawkeye and Black Widow. Lightning flashed from above and Thor appeared just as the Goblin extracted himself from the wall and lunged at the grounded Spider-Man. Thor knocked him off his glider with his hammer and sent him flying back several hundred feet, but even with that blow the glider still caught him.

"What took you all so long?" the Captain joked.

"We don't all live in Brooklyn," Widow replied. "What's the Goblin's game?"

"He's after Spider-Man—and apparently he knows more than S.H.I.E.L.D. because he knows the kid's identity—and that of his mother," the Captain replied as the Goblin came back around, dueling it out with Thor. Spider-Man just sunk to the sidewalk, sitting down. The kid was in bad shape, the Captain knew that.

"We have to catch him," Spider-Man said into his comm. "He'll kill her—it'll be my fault—I can't—"

"We'll get him, Spider-Man," the Captain assured him. "Widow, Hawkeye, get up high, this guy's not one for the ground. Hawkeye, try to take out that glider with one of your special arrows. I'll stay on the ground and look out for the kid."

Before the Captain knew that he was doing it, Spider-Man forced himself to his feet and shot off web to the nearest building, pulling himself back into the air.

"Spider-Man! Where do you think you're going?" the Captain demanded.

"I'm going to end this," Spider-Man replied.

"Get back down here right now!" the Captain ordered. "Spider-Man! That's not a request that's an order! Spider-Man! _Get back here!_"

But Spider-Man didn't listen to the Captain's protests. He flew through the air towards Thor and the Goblin, and, once he was close enough, swung in a circle around them.

"Hey Goblin! It's me you want right? I'll give you a fair chance, just you and me, come on!" Spider-Man said, before swinging away, flying as far and fast away from the Avengers as he could. Of course, Thor could follow with relative ease, but the baffled Asgardian appeared to be waiting for orders.

"THOR! GET AFTER HIM!" the Captain ordered. He felt cold. That kid was going to get himself killed. And stuck on the ground, with only one eye in the sky, there was almost nothing he could do about it.

He ran after them anyway.

"Sir, I have completed analysis of the missing footage," JARVIS spoke, waking Tony from his uneasy slumber. Tony rubbed his eyes.

"Good. Great. Hit me. What's the little monster been up to?" Tony asked. JARVIS commandeered a projector. It showed Peter entering the workshop. It was dated around nine months ago, before they had moved in. Tony squinted. Peter was looking at the underarmor for the Iron Man suit.

"_JARVIS, is there any extra material left over from the underarmor?"_ onscreen Peter asked.

"_Yes, Master Peter,"_ recorded JARVIS said. The top steel drawer opened._ "All available scraps are located in the top drawer_." Onscreen Peter straightened up and looked through the drawer. He pulled out some strips of black, swatches of blue, and a whole bolt of red.

"_Well, I guess that decides my color scheme,"_ onscreen Peter said. Tony felt his blood run cold. He didn't need to see the rest of the footage. Events from the last nine months were clicking into place in that genius brain of Tony's, that genius brain that hadn't, for nine months, realized that his own son was Spider-Man.

Tony made a grab for his comm., the one he'd kept from the Avengers. It was the only sure-fire way to get hold of Steve, more certain than his cell phone. He popped it in his ear and turned it on.

"_Captain America online—Avengers, assemble—Spider-Man just hang in there as long as you can, keep him away from civilians, I'll be there in one minute_," the Captain said.

"_I think hanging in here is kind of my only option right now,"_ Spider-Man replied in a strained voice. Tony's heart leapt in panic. They were in the middle of serious trouble, and Spider-Man, _Peter_, was caught right in the middle.

The suit was on Tony an instant later, and he was out of the tower, rocketing through the sky towards Brooklyn.

The Captain was running towards the building as fast as he possibly could. He could see the Goblin on a rooftop, but he couldn't see Spider-Man. Off in the distance, though, there was something in the sky—something the Captain hadn't seen in a long time.

"_Iron Man_?" Steve asked in astonishment. "What are you doing—" Tony cut him off.

"PETER!" Iron Man shouted through the comm. system. "IT'S PETER, SPIDER-MAN IS PETER!"

Iron Man flew around and grabbed Steve hard around the waist to Steve's surprise, and together the flew to the rooftop. Steve saw the situation—Peter, somehow paralyzed, the Goblin behind him, holding him up, as the Goblin's glider's blades slid out, ready to fly. Steve leapt out of Iron Man's arms, landing on the roof with a _thud_. He shoved Peter out of the way just in time—the Goblin's glider slammed into the Goblin, slicing through his armor, half a second later.

Steve picked up his son, just as Iron Man landed in his field of vision. Slowly regaining his mobility, Spider-Man, _Peter?_, managed to turn his head and take in the scene—the Goblin was impaled on his own glider. Iron Man walked over and ripped off the Goblin's mask.

Underneath the mask was Norman Osborn.

"Don't," he said, pitifully. "Don't tell…"

"I think your identity's pretty well and told, Osborn," Iron Man said.

"Don't tell Harry," Osborn whispered, and his eyes weren't on Iron Man. "Peter, don't tell Harry…" Steve was pretty sure that Iron Man was going to blast the Goblin off the roof just for _addressing_ his son, but then the Goblin exhaled and didn't inhale again.

Steve removed his own mask, looking down at Spider-Man with horror. The kid was still bleeding. _His_ kid? Iron Man lifted his own faceplate, and beneath it, Tony looked at Spider-Man with the same fear. Slowly, gently, Steve peeled the mask off of Spider-Man's face. His son, battered, exhausted, was behind it. Steve couldn't help his sharp intake of breath.

"My God," Steve said, only half aware he'd said it.

"Peter, I know what he used, don't struggle, just breathe as best you can, it'll wear off in a minute," Tony said.

"We need—S.H.I.E.L.D. I need a med evac three minutes ago, Spider-Man, _Peter_, has been grievously injured—"

"We're already on it, Captain," Clint assured him through the comm.

Steve heard Peter breathed a sigh of relief, before he promptly went limp. Steve's heart stopped for a moment.

"Peter?" he asked in a very small voice. "Son? Peter?" Steve couldn't breathe. Peter's face had drained of blood. He was so, so pale. Tony, however had more presence of mind. He had removed a gauntlet and stuck two fingers to Peter's neck—looking for a pulse. Tony breathed a sigh of relief.

"He's just passed out," he said. Steve gained his presence of mind again.

"He's out. We've got severe blood loss, a possible punctured lung, more than one broken rib if I had to guess, and a reopened injury from yesterday," Steve said into his comm, struggling to stay clinical about it. It was nearly impossible. He held his broken, bleeding son in his arms.

Neither he nor Tony said anything as the evac arrived and they loaded Peter into the helicopter. They said nothing on the ride to the hospital as EMTs looked after him, offering them no assurances. They said nothing as they waited outside surgery, hoping desperately that everything would be fine. They didn't say anything until a doctor assured them he would be. Steve could have cried from relief. He nearly did. He held his estranged husband tightly as the two of them spoke without words.

_He's ok. He's ok. He's ok._

Peter was wheeled out of surgery and into a private room. Steve and Tony sat beside each other on a couch in the room as they watched their boy, hooked up to machines and an IV, sleep. Steve was glad that Tony did not protest when he took his hand. Steve wouldn't have been able to handle the stress of bearing this without Tony.

Peter groaned. Steve and Tony leapt up from the couch, instantly at his side.

"Peter?" their two voices asked at once. Peter's eyes fluttered open He looked around with a hazy sort of confusion apparent on his face. Steve held his hand.

"Avenger-ing is hard," Peter mumbled. His fathers breathed sighs of relief.

"You really scared us there, Peter," Steve said. "When you passed out, I thought—" Steve stopped, unable to continue and shook his head. "We're glad you're awake."

"I'm not, everything hurts," Peter complained hoarsely. Steve wordlessly held out a glass of water with a straw, and Peter took a few sips.

"You're on some pain medication, but the doctors can up the dosage if you need it. Do you want us to call in a nurse?" Steve asked. Peter shook his head, but winced at the small action. Steve rolled his eyes. "Tony—"

"Already called them," Tony replied. A nurse came in a moment later, did something to the IV, and then left. They sat in silence together until Peter's pain became more bearable.

"I guess we—have to talk," Peter said reluctantly. Steve just rubbed his thumb in soothing circles over the back of Peter's hand.

"We don't need to now if you don't want to, Peter," he said kindly. "You need your rest."

"No I—I'd rather get it over with," Peter said. "I'm sorry. I know I should have told you, when it happened—"

"Why don't we just start there, Peter," Tony said softly. "How did this happen, and when?"

So Peter started from the beginning. He told them how he'd won Oscorp's Young Scientist award entirely unintentionally, how he'd gone to the facility to tell Norman Osborn that he couldn't accept, knowing how Tony would react if he found out. He told them how a spider got caught in a radioactive ray, how it fell and bit him on the hand, how that was the 'allergic reaction' he'd had all those months ago. He told them how he'd wanted to say something, but they were fighting, and it was just never a good time. He told them how he'd mostly joined the Avengers by accident, hearing their waves over his comm. He told them how, after a while, he was afraid to tell them the truth for having lied to them in the first place. Peter finished with how he'd gone to meet Rebecca, and it had turned out to be a trap.

There was silence for a minute. Then, Steve leaned over and kissed his forehead.

"You're really not the one who should be apologizing, Peter," he said. He nearly choked on the words. He could barely think through one, all-consuming thought: _You are horrible parents._ "Get some sleep, you incredible kid."

"Not incredible," Tony disagreed, ruffling Peter's hair. "_Amazing_. We—Peter your Pops and I—God we're so sorry you felt this way, felt like you couldn't tell us about this. And we'll…we can do better."

"We haven't been much of a family these past nine months," Steve agreed. "But I think—I think we've all learned our lesson. We'll do better for you, Peter. We promise."

Peter made them promise not to make the Green Goblin's identity into public knowledge. They agreed, but only because Peter begged, and only because Norman Osborn's judgment had obviously been impaired by the botched super soldier serum his company had created. After also demanding to attend the press conference that would take place in just a few hours, Peter went to sleep. Steve and Tony returned to their vigil on the couch.

"I don't think there are words enough in the English language," Steve said softly, "to describe how stupid and selfish we've been." Tony just nodded his agreement. Steve took his hand again.

He had to fix this. He had to fix this in any way that he could. He was, however, at a loss as to how. Nothing had changed. Their problems were still there.

But, that wasn't entirely true. Something _had_ changed. Peter had taken up the family business. Peter had gained superpowers, that left him far less vulnerable.

Peter was no longer an excuse.

And Steve no longer wanted any excuses.

Steve hated press conferences, and he hated that this one had to happen so soon after Peter's surgery. Coulson had to _wheel_ him to it, for God's sake. But just because they were dealing with a personal crisis didn't mean the world would wait for an explanation, especially since they had no idea what that personal crisis could possibly be. So Tony put on his best suit, and Steve donned his old military uniform, and he stood at the podium, the statement SHIELD had written for him on the notecards in his hands. Steve cleared his throat and the room quieted.

"We are here today to inform the public that the disturbance this morning in Brooklyn was caused by the Green Goblin, whose threat has been hanging over this city for the past nine months. Today, he was finally apprehended. It was discovered that he was a rogue experiment of Oscorp, the result of a super soldier serum gone horribly wrong.

"The Green Goblin was killed in the fighting, and the public may rest easy in the knowledge that he will never again fly through our skies. But our hearts go out to the victims of the attack, four civilians who are injured but are, we are assured, recovering well in the hospital.

"As for the Avengers in general news, we welcome back Mr. Tony Stark into our ranks, and would like to officially announce that the vigilante Spider-Man is being absorbed into our team as well, though doubtless many of you have already seen him on our team these past few months." Steve abruptly stopped. He looked up from his notes, out into the sea of reporters, who waited, expectantly.

No more excuses. It was now or never. The official statement was almost finished anyway. It was time to go off script.

"We…uh, we don't have much else to report, to be honest with you. But I do, if we _are_ being honest. You know this is, this is more Tony's thing, getting up in front of the press and talking, frankly, I avoid it when I can. And _this_, throwing away the notes, that uh, that's definitely more Tony's thing." Steve could hear the whispers and the murmurs of the confused audience. The Captain had never gone off script before. More cameras were flashing, and the press looked like they'd woken up some. Steve took a deep breath.

"Of course, none of you would know that, because, you know plenty about Captain America—and he _does_ stand up and make speeches all the time—but you don't know much about Steve Rogers and, frankly, that's always suited me just fine. I like my privacy. But uh, I guess there's a big difference between privacy and honesty, between being close-lipped and hiding something.

"I've always done what I thought was best for the team, for this nation, for the world. And for a long time that's meant hiding a big part of myself because I wasn't sure the world was ready to know, if America could handle it. But I've realized over the past few months and especially through the events of today that America will just…just have to be because I won't let my fear tear my family apart. And yes, I did say family."

Cameras were going crazy. Steve was just glad that Coulson hadn't made a move to stop him yet. Steve turned just ever so slightly, taking Tony's hand in his and bringing him a little more forward. He could see the utterly stunned expression on his husband's face. It wasn't often that he managed to surprise Tony Stark.

"Truth of it is, folks, Tony Stark and I have been together for twenty years, and married for fifteen. We've got a wonderful son, Peter—he's not feeling too well today, but he's here, Pete why don't you wave and say hi?" Peter, from his wheelchair in the audience, managed a small smile and held his hand up in a tiny wave. A barrage of cameras turned in his direction. Steve still wished he could leave Peter out of the spotlight, but there was no way the reporters wouldn't have found him after this announcement, anyway.

"I love my family, and I'm not going to let anything stand in the way of that. Not even the whole of America. Not even the whole of the world. And uh, that, well, that really is all we have for you today." The instant Steve finished the press were all screaming over one another, clamoring for questions. Steve didn't answer them. Tony smiled at Steve. Steve smiled back. Tony leaned in for a kiss, and Steve obliged him. They shared a chaste, quick kiss that for sure would end up on youtube in two minutes flat and grace the headlines tonight, before they walked off stage, hand in hand, and came for Peter. Steve took his wheelchair. Coulson looked at Steve. Steve just shrugged and smiled, and wheeled Peter down the hall, back towards his room, and as soon as they were away from the press, Tony burst out.

"Gelato!" he said. "No, better, ice cream cake. Who wants ice cream cake, I'm _craving_ ice cream cake—"

"Tony, I don't think Peter's even had a _proper_ meal today—"

"Ok, fine, I'll special order some crickets—"

"_Dad!"_

"—and _then_ ice cream cake."

"Make it hamburgers," Steve said, rolling his eyes.

"Burger King!" Peter added.

"Oh, and the ice cream cake from Friendly's," Steve finished.

"No, Coldstone!"

"What?" Steve asked. "Coldstone? _Coldstone_? Friendly's is an _American classic_. It's as _old as me_. I went to Friendly's as a kid!"

"Older does not mean better."

"How are you my son? First no coca cola, then no _Friendly's_?"

"I don't know what you two are arguing about, we're getting Ben and Jerry's," Tony said.

Steve and Peter groaned, and the whole little family continued to argue about ice cream cake the whole way back to Peter's room. Steve couldn't help but feel elated. Everything was back to normal. He looked at his son, radiant despite his injuries, and at his husband, who looked happier than Steve had seen him in twenty years.

No, things weren't back to normal at all.

Things were _better_ than normal.

They slept on the couch that night in the hospital. Tony was curled up half beside, half on top of Steve, and Steve held his arms tightly around Tony. He kissed him on the forehead and Tony hummed with pleasure.

"Steve?" he said quietly.

"Mm?"

"I love you," Tony said. Steve kissed him on the lips for a long moment.

"You know I love you too," he said. Tony nodded.

"Let's never do that again."

"What?"

"Fight. Like that. Shut each other out. Separate."

"Never," Steve agreed. They lay together in comfortable silence for a few moments.

"I don't have my ring on," Tony said. He moved a bit, then removed a chain from his neck, off of which dangled his wedding ring. Steve smiled sheepishly.

"Great minds think alike," Steve replied, drawing out his own.

"Well, great mind and one half-way decent one," Tony corrected. Steve shoved him lightly. Tony chuckled. Tony removed the chain from his ring, as Steve did the same, but before Steve returned the ring to his finger, Tony stopped him.

"Wait," he said. "Wait. We should say something."

"Like what?" Steve asked.

"I don't know, this just seems like a momentous occasion and something should be said to commemorate it," Tony insisted. Steve laughed very quietly, always conscious of Peter's quiet, steady breathing on the other side of the hospital room.

"You want to renew our vows?" Steve asked.

"Yes! Yes, something like that," Tony said. Steve shrugged, putting his ring back on the chain.

"All right. We'll make arrangements tomorrow—"

"No, no, let's just do it here. Now. Together. Just us," Tony said. Steve smiled.

"So impatient," he admonished. He took Tony's ring, and then he took his hand. "I promise to love you always. I promise to never be ashamed or fearful of that love. I promise to listen more. And above all, I promise to never walk out again, even if you're shoving me out the door." He slipped the ring back on Tony's finger.

"Ditto," Tony said with a grin, and slipped Steve's ring back onto his finger.

"Ditto? _Ton-y_," Steve complained, but then his husband was kissing him fiercely, holding him tightly, and nothing else mattered.

Certain other aspects of their reunion would have to wait until they were home. In fact, Steve wasn't even sure where home was anymore—was it Stark Tower? Was it the house in Brooklyn Steve knew full well Tony had never sold? Or was it somewhere else entirely?

Well, Steve supposed it didn't matter. Because home was not a place. Steve had been away from home for a very, very long time. But now he had, they all had, finally returned.

They were home.


End file.
